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Cross immunity (immunity due to exposure to similar viruses in the past, e.g. certain variants of the common cold) is another theory that might explain what's happening in Italy and elsewhere. Spain has just had its first day without any COVID-19 de…
Oh well, the WHO says no. And this guy used to be Berlusconi's personal doctor. Could be true, but it sounds like we shouldn't get our hopes too high yet.
It seems too good to believe, and I can't find anyone else saying this aside from these two doctors in Italy... yet they seem like they're in a position to know. Anyone able to find anything confirming / disproving their theory?
@sma3 +1. GMO always sounds so reasonable... just not right. I guess it shows just how hard market timing or even asset class timing is. Slow and steady (like VWINX) seems a better way, at least for mere mortals.
@sma3, @Mark I'm certainly inclined to agree (and I'm betting that way, my cash level is much higher than I'd like it to be) but at least two pretty brilliant center left economists (Paul Krugman in Bloomberg, Jason Furman in Politico) think a V sha…
I'm less concerned about a bear market than about having maybe missed my chance to deploy my dry powder. When I decide to stop waiting and pull the trigger, I'll let you all know -- it'll be a sign that we've hit the top.
Jason Furman, Obama's form…
Krugman is arguing that this rally is not a bet on a V-shaped recovery, but on the Fed avoiding a financial crisis and interest rates likely near zero for near forever, precisely because the recovery won't be fast. So, relatively few bankruptcies am…
+1 @Zolta. The link that JohnN provided is to an interview with a top doctor at the U Pitt Hospital system, so one shouldn't dismiss his 0.25% fatality rate out of hand.
That 0.25% rate does however assume that everyone who needs an ICU bed gets on…
For a while now growth has outperformed value or blend. If that continues, which is very possible, then sure, VOOG (1/3 tech) will outperform. If it doesn't, MOAT is more balanced, and CAPE (or DSENX) should maybe benefit when currently undervalued …
@johnN Glad to see you back on the board! Hope you and your family are well, many of us here have been worried about you.
@willmatt72 Thanks for posting the Massachusetts data, very informative. One thought: the relatively low death rate (include f…
@msf +1, I agree. I wonder if this development might actually hurt the recovery: by encouraging a too-early easing of social distancing and by making it seem less urgent for Congress to pass more stimulus.
I don't know, too many variables for me, …
@msf If you look at the original article, this was from a phase 3 trial. But yes, it's only one small part of that trial, so Gilead is correctly saying it's promising but too soon to be sure.
Poking around a bit further, it seems that even if it wo…
I was reminded of why I sold ARIVX (in which I made decent money, no complaints) when I went to PVCMX's website and read Cinnamond's commentary. He's an Austrian school hard money guy who thinks monetary policy has been propping up a bubble for the …
+1 @Shostakovich, Marks is very clearly saying that he is buying now, though not backing up the truck, and even if it's certainly possible that we'll have another plunge, the prices are already attractive.
His point is that no one can predict the e…
I hope Hulbert's right, because I've got a fair amount of dry powder that I'd love to deploy, but it seems that everyone believes the same as Hulbert does. (Have you heard any analyst saying, Now's the time to back up the truck?) If you're looking a…
@Rbrt that's my feeling too, that we've got another leg down, but that means I (and perhaps you) are fighting the Fed, which clearly now has a "whatever it takes" mentality. Add to the Fed a couple trillion in stimulus... I can see what some folks (…
Another maybe bullish sign... This article from the NYT says it's institutional investors (aka smart money) driving this one while Mom and Pop investors (like me) wait it out.
They say markets are foward looking... If we're heading to a recovery starting later this year, even if it's a slow one, and interest rates are likely to say at zero for years, then maybe buying stocks in companies likely to survive makes a lot of s…
Seems like everyone on this board, including me, is expecting this market to go lower... But we're probably too small a group for that to qualify as a contrary indicator.
@davidrmoran. Yes, hard to know which... Maybe Gundlach is finding a chance to snap up good bonds sold at firesale prices. Last time this sort of thing happened (2008), smart bond managers with cash on hand made out like bandits.
Impressive indeed, I just did the same graph. The question for me is whether to add to DSENX or just buy CAPE instead (which I can get at Schwab.) Sticking to my keep-it-simple philosophy, CAPE might make more sense.
@davidrmoran, Oh, I'm holding too. My question above was rhetorical: I do believe Gundlach will add value over the long term. I'll probably add at some point.
@msf Great stuff, indeed, thanks. And I suppose, if it finds some good buying opportunities now, it may do quite a bit better than money market funds in this zero interest rate world.
Still, for me personally, if it can't outperform an index fund e…
Very sorry to hear of your friend's death, David. Yes, this virus is really hitting home.
I hadn't realized until one of your earlier comments how DSENX has consistently underperformed CAPE. Yeah, I own DSENX too, not a big part of my portfolio, bu…
Hi @David_Snowball, yes, my comment was about RPHYX, and I was actually thinking of you when I wrote that comment, since I know you've invested heavily in it.
In this crash, it has underperformed both vanilla bond funds like MWTRX and Vanguard's bo…
+1 @Old_Joe, and it sounds like you practice what you preach.
I split the difference, sold a chunk of VPCCX equal to about 5% of my overall portfolio. If the market shoots up again, I'll sell another 5%. If it drops, I'll wait for these up-and-down…
@VintageFreak. It's not just PTTRX. Pretty every well-run, vanilla intermediate-term bond fund has held up better in this crash than RPHYX, while also providing better medium and long-term returns.
The promise of RPHYX was to sacrifice some potenti…
@PopTart, yes, my thoughts exactly. I'm looking at what's surging, casino & resort stocks for example, and it makes no sense, except short covering or algos. So I think I may finally try short-term fund trading today.
My plan is to sell a chun…
So far, the traditional, vanilla bond funds (MWTRX, VCORX) have mostly held up a hell of a lot better than the "nontraditional" ones that were supposed to do fancy stuff to keep investors safe.