Covid-19

[wsreader]

Just as HIV is the virus that causes the disease AIDS, SARS-CoV-2 is the virus that causes the disease COVID-19.

A note on the naming from WHO :
https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases...-causes-it

[holymage]

I love ray dalio. I actually bought a couple 10oz cast bars the other day as an insurance policy after hearing him talk about how central banks are printing too much with rates too low and we might be going back to gold standard. I firmly believe this virus is the black swan trigger we been waiting for  Next few months gold and mask makers like 3M company likely to outperform everything else. There will be a big correction crash in bubble assets like property stocks bonds I reckon.

Highly doubt the world will return to a gold standard, simply because of politics. Gold standard is a tight leash on fiscal policy.

This might be surprising to many, but gold's returns for the past 1 year since March 2019 has been 29%. 
At current prices, I don't think gold is cheap nor expensive, however it may be considered cheap if the Fed were to officially launch QE4++ and inflation were to substantially exceed the Fed's 2% target. The probability of that happening might be subjective.

[Behappyalways]

2020.03.07【文茜世界周報】美教授警告：生物安全問題 恐為及習近平政治地位
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SYBeu7Hr...U&index=11


2020.03.07【文茜世界周報】全球首例新冠逝者　法醫：肺已經不是肺
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPIxA02W...AU&index=8


2020.03.07【文茜世界周報】陸科研團隊分析基因組　發現149個突變位點
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yD0b32Ei...AU&index=7

[BlueKelah]

I love ray dalio. I actually bought a couple 10oz cast bars the other day as an insurance policy after hearing him talk about how central banks are printing too much with rates too low and we might be going back to gold standard. I firmly believe this virus is the black swan trigger we been waiting for  Next few months gold and mask makers like 3M company likely to outperform everything else. There will be a big correction crash in bubble assets like property stocks bonds I reckon.

Highly doubt the world will return to a gold standard, simply because of politics. Gold standard is a tight leash on fiscal policy.

This might be surprising to many, but gold's returns for the past 1 year since March 2019 has been 29%. 
At current prices, I don't think gold is cheap nor expensive, however it may be considered cheap if the Fed were to officially launch QE4++ and inflation were to substantially exceed the Fed's 2% target. The probability of that happening might be subjective.

Main driver of gold price rise is central banks buying tonnes of product last year. Notably countries like Poland, Russia, China and even Kazakhstan increased their holdings significantly.

why do they buy gold even when they can print money??
quote :
The Dutch central bank, De Nederlandse Bank, said that gold was a critical asset. A report from the central bank said, “If the entire system collapses, the gold stock provides a collateral to start over. Gold gives confidence in the power of the central bank’s balance sheet. That gives a safe feeling.”


FED already done a big 50basis point drop.  Now with virus spreading rampantly in USA and markets plummeting, what do you think is their next step?

Fed has no choice but to do a last minute QE4 and drop rates to zero soon if they still follow the old methods of easing. Otherwise the other option is to let the "too big to fail" all fail and we are in the next great depression. But with bond rates so low and American economy in doubt from the virus, how successful will the bond auctions be? .

In either scenario gold will continue to hold its own if not outperform. Cryptos will crash and funds will flow from that back to gold. Funds from stock sales earning negative rates will flock to appreciating gold asset. Property sales from property crash will flock to gold.

We'll see yeah....

-vested in physical gold bars, my precious!!-

[dreamybear]

Wow, I cannot imagine the economic implications if indeed last till end 2020 and if the situation is not well controlled, probably going down in history as a black swan event. 

-----------------------------------------------
Covid-19 likely to last till end-2020 at least: Experts   (09 Mar 2020)
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/h...st-experts

[soros]

Cases
Deaths

Mainland China
80,778
3,158
Italy
10,149
631
Iran
8,042
291
South Korea
7,775
60
Spain
1,622
36
France
1,606
30
Germany
1,296
2
United States
731
29
Diamond Princess*
696
7
Japan
568
12

Posted by scmp website ( figures from WHO )

[BRT]

thought itd be interesting to track to covid progress thru each country from their respective day 1's. some approx required cos things like when exactly is china's day 1 is hard to say, but not so relevant to the trend anyway. i arbitrarily selected countries and put their day 1's (i.e. date they first reported a confirmed case) at the same starting point. so china is in it's day 52 of the virus, switzerland is in it's day 17; give or take a few days. my sources are
http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/news/TrackingtheEpidemic.htm
https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-...firmed.csv

my thinking is that each country should aspire to produce a logistic curve (see pic 1), which china has produced (for now). certainly local factors play a big part; ability to lock down it's people and enforce distancing (china vs EU, but lets see how italy does), strength of healthcare system and extent of testing (korea), openness to foreigners (sg, hk). in way, the diamond princess has also formed the logistic curve (pic 2) where the ppl who can be infected have already been infected.

pic 3 i highlighted italy shooting to the moon and korea which seems to be flattening out v well, hopefully completing the log curve in the days to come.

pic 4 you see those that just started to join the party - france germany spain us and switz some days behind.

pic 5 is sg hk my. no signed of tapering off yet. with our small numbers the inflection point may be harder to spot.

all data points are the total number of confirmed cases.

[BRT]

day 1 dates

[Behappyalways]

World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/who-decl...demic.html

[holymage]

World Health Organization declares the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/11/who-decl...demic.html

This outcome is not surprising given the characteristics of COVID-19, that one can easily infer from the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan, as well as the unprecedented extreme measures that several governments took.

It is bewildering that quite a substantial number of people downplayed the severity of COVID-19, comparing it to the seasonal flu (including Mr Trump). I guess not anymore.