|
|
Post by mrclondon on Jan 28, 2020 1:52:01 GMT
First a bit of background on me - I'm a glass half-full type of person, generally pretty un-fazed by events, and comfortable making my own determination of the likelihood of getting myself into a bad position having considered whatever info I can get my hands on. (i.e. I'm not "easly led") And yet, the events unfolding in China are scaring me badly. There is of course a ridiculous amount of speculation / fake news / hype on-line. But filter that out, and hone in on what data there is and the picture that is emerging is at the very least concerning. Confirmed cases & subsequent deaths are both on an exponential upward trajectory, whilst those cured are on a much lower linear trajectory. Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak is already struggling to cope, and yet several other cities (incl Shanghai with a sizable Brit expat population, and Beijing) now have similar numbers of confirmed cases as Wuhan had just a few days ago. ( BNO News - referenced by several internation MSM groups, see About footer) There seems to be potential for this to explode big time inside China over the next week or so.
Science is as yet unable to provide an answer as to whether its contagious before symptoms appear (this class of viruses generally aren't, but the exponential growth is hard to understand without it).
The symptoms seem to be as you'd expect "bad flu" leading to pneumonia.
This post is certainly not intended to panic anyone that similar is about to strike the streets of the UK (or indeed any country outside of SE Asia) but from an investment perspective I don't think the falls on world markets on Monday can be dismissed as hype or overreaction. I think anyone seeing these falls as a buying opportunity needs to look a bit deeper. At the very least this is going to hit the Chinese economy hard, and given a huge amount of what we consume in the UK (non-food) originates from China supply chains are going to get stretched in the medium term.
SARS the nearest equivalent died out after c. 9 months in 2003-4 and nobody knows why, though ambient temperature may have played a part - it started in the winter and disappeared in the summer.
Am I the only one thinking along these lines ?
|
|
Greenwood2
Member of DD Central
Posts: 4,384
Likes: 2,784
|
Post by Greenwood2 on Jan 28, 2020 7:42:30 GMT
I don't know how significant the death rate is, superficially it doesn't seem that high (so far, officially) 108 this morning out of thousands infected? Is it mainly vulnerable people the old, the very young and those with other conditions that are dying? The logistics of it worry me, looking after thousands of ill people and even feeding the people in the shut down cities, how will food supplies get in and who will sell/distribute the food for 11 million in Wuhan and in the other cities with shops and markets shut and people holed up in their apartments? I hope the Chinese government has a plan.
And then there's the risk of spread around the world. And finally the economic impact on China. Cheerful times.
|
|
r00lish67
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,692 
Likes: 4,048
|
Post by r00lish67 on Jan 28, 2020 8:30:43 GMT
Well, I'm a glass half-empty type of guy, and funnily enough take the opposite view :-)
VFEM only fell back to where it was on approx the 10th December 2019 yesterday, and at the time of writing is back up 1.35%.
Meanwhile, IIRC, the Dow fell about 7-8% on the 23rd-24th December 2018 with no prospective global pandemic in tow.
That's not to say I'm ruling out the chance of this growing to a more sizeable event, I've no idea. No way to know in advance though, and if I sold out of EM every time it fell 4% then I'd be doing a lot of selling!
edit: will add that despite the attractive CAPE, I'm not considering buying more EM even with a greater fall. I do have some, but generally now prefer the less volatile world trackers,which i think fell 2.25% yesterday for similar reasons, probably. Do want to buy some VWRL though, but struggle to convince myself to do so. as always in the last 5 years!
|
|
IFISAcava
Member of DD Central
Posts: 3,692
Likes: 3,018
|
Post by IFISAcava on Jan 28, 2020 8:34:58 GMT
First a bit of background on me - I'm a glass half-full type of person, generally pretty un-fazed by events, and comfortable making my own determination of the likelihood of getting myself into a bad position having considered whatever info I can get my hands on. (i.e. I'm not "easly led") And yet, the events unfolding in China are scaring me badly. There is of course a ridiculous amount of speculation / fake news / hype on-line. But filter that out, and hone in on what data there is and the picture that is emerging is at the very least concerning. Confirmed cases & subsequent deaths are both on an exponential upward trajectory, whilst those cured are on a much lower linear trajectory. Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak is already struggling to cope, and yet several other cities (incl Shanghai with a sizable Brit expat population, and Beijing) now have similar numbers of confirmed cases as Wuhan had just a few days ago. ( BNO News - referenced by several internation MSM groups, see About footer) There seems to be potential for this to explode big time inside China over the next week or so.
Science is as yet unable to provide an answer as to whether its contagious before symptoms appear (this class of viruses generally aren't, but the exponential growth is hard to understand without it).
The symptoms seem to be as you'd expect "bad flu" leading to pneumonia.
This post is certainly not intended to panic anyone that similar is about to strike the streets of the UK (or indeed any country outside of SE Asia) but from an investment perspective I don't think the falls on world markets on Monday can be dismissed as hype or overreaction. I think anyone seeing these falls as a buying opportunity needs to look a bit deeper. At the very least this is going to hit the Chinese economy hard, and given a huge amount of what we consume in the UK (non-food) originates from China supply chains are going to get stretched in the medium term.
SARS the nearest equivalent died out after c. 9 months in 2003-4 and nobody knows why, though ambient temperature may have played a part - it started in the winter and disappeared in the summer.
Am I the only one thinking along these lines ?
We don't know everything about this virus, and I suppose there is an outside chance this one is different, but we do know that it is almost always the case that hysteria in response to health scares does a lot more damage than the illness itself.
|
|
r00lish67
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,692
Likes: 4,048
|
Post by r00lish67 on Jan 28, 2020 8:40:01 GMT
Some interesting literature around on the impact to the stock market of pandemics, e.g. this onePuts quite a psychological bar up to measure against when you read things like (to paraphrase) "Bit difficult to measure the impact of the Spanish flu, which killed 20 million people, because the first world war was starting as well". |
|
IFISAcava
Member of DD Central
Posts: 3,692
Likes: 3,018
|
Post by IFISAcava on Jan 28, 2020 8:40:03 GMT
Context:
The 2017-2018 flu season resulted in an estimated 959,000 hospitalizations and 79,400 deaths.
And that was just in the USA.
|
|
IFISAcava
Member of DD Central
Posts: 3,692
Likes: 3,018
|
Post by IFISAcava on Jan 28, 2020 8:44:00 GMT
|
|
IFISAcava
Member of DD Central
Posts: 3,692
Likes: 3,018
|
Post by IFISAcava on Jan 28, 2020 8:48:34 GMT
|
|
cb25
Posts: 3,528
Likes: 2,668
|
Post by cb25 on Jan 28, 2020 9:27:15 GMT
I think the risk is exaggerated by the media who are all over this because i) it's new, ii) the response of the Chinese government (e.g. locking down whole towns) is massively in excess of what the West would do for this number of deaths (we get more 'normal' flu deaths per year, yet no town goes into lock-down).
A few years ago, Ebola was repeatedly in the news. WHO reports "The Democratic Republic of the Congo is grappling with the world’s second largest Ebola epidemic on record, with more than 2200 lives lost and 3300 confirmed infections since the outbreak was declared on 1 August 2018"
So, just over 100 dead from Coronavirus currently, 2200 dead from Ebola, yet the media reports only Coronavirus. I suspect partly because Ebola is old news, partly because Westerners don't generally travel to/from the DRC.
I also don't think Matt Hancock helped the other day by saying the risk had gone from very low to low. Given we've had no deaths, I think it would have been more accurate to have said the risk had gone from essentially zero to very very low.
btw am I the only one amazed at the Chinese statement that they'll put up a hospital/isolation ward in 7 days(!!!) and they're not joking?
|
|
keitha
Member of DD Central
2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
Posts: 4,587
Likes: 2,622
|
Post by keitha on Jan 28, 2020 10:11:50 GMT
Personally, and it's not intended to upset anyone with friends and relatives in Wuhan etc, but I don't think we should be bringing UK Citizens / residents back.
people are saying we can put them in Isolation, so OK we bring back say 1000 people, we'd have to open up an isolation unit and staff it, I assume we'd also isolate the flight crew, and the Border force etc staff that come into contact with them.
Do we isolate them as a group or individual rooms, what do we do if room 15 develops symptoms after 10 days do we keep them all another 2 weeks or what
But I just feel we'd have people doing the "human rights" thing - keeping me in isolation infringes them. Do we really know how long before symptoms develop, is it possible people are carriers as in typhoid Mary, too few knowns for me and too many unknowns.
|
|
keitha
Member of DD Central
2024, hopefully the year I get out of P2P
Posts: 4,587
Likes: 2,622
|
Post by keitha on Jan 28, 2020 10:14:31 GMT
Some interesting literature around on the impact to the stock market of pandemics, e.g. this onePuts quite a psychological bar up to measure against when you read things like (to paraphrase) "Bit difficult to measure the impact of the Spanish flu, which killed 20 million people, because the first world war was starting as well". Erm hadn't the great war just finished rather than started.
|
|
james100
Member of DD Central
Posts: 1,086
Likes: 1,287
|
Post by james100 on Jan 28, 2020 10:20:10 GMT
The Chinese government have an established track record when it comes to transparency and timely containment...it's not a good one. 100 deaths and yet building new hospitals and locking down millions of people? Really? Particularly give the underlying death stats posted above, I think one would need to be more than a glass-half-full kind of person to buy that. What makes this different IMHO is the length of asymptomatic incubation period and reported transmission rate (which I assume are directly connected). Australian schools reopen next week after the long summer break and I see NSW (so, inc Sydney with huge Chinese population) has asked all pupils and teachers who've flown back from trips to China during previous 14 days to self-quarantine. Many businesses also asking staff to self-quarantine even requiring medical certificates to return to offices after mere stop overs anywhere in China (all, not just Hubei). Over reaction response to contain fear rather than the virus? Perhaps. And the NSW Health Minister is called Mr Hazzard after all  I think that we'll know more by Friday how serious this is going to be. |
|
pip
Posts: 542
Likes: 725
|
Post by pip on Jan 28, 2020 10:35:44 GMT
I do think that a global Pandemic is a bigger threat to the continuation of humanity than climate change but receives almost none of the attention. This is based on no scientific evidence whatsoever and completely off the top of my head but I can well imagine a scenario where a disease spreads quickly around the globe before symptoms are even detected and authorities are powerless to stop the spread or the breakdown in public services and order.
I struggle to imagine a similar scenario with climate change, yes there could be natural disasters (currently deaths from natural disasters are at historic lows) which may be in part attributable to climate change. More likely long term changes in climatic conditions which personally (again with no scientific evidence backing me up here) could be coped with by changes to agricultural techniques/crops, movements south to North of arable land and relocation of properties in coastal areas. Yeah will be annoying but prefer that than a mass pandemic. Some people speak of a run 'run-away climate scenario', where temperatures rise to a certain level where so much methane is released from melting glaciers that temperature rockets to the level where life is not sustainable. Again with no scientific backing, I find this scenario most unlikely as while I could see a scenario where glaciers melt releasing methane, even if this were to happen I suspect temperature would only rise a few degrees for a few hundred years, well below what they were in pre-historic times. In short, no idea if this will happen but if it did it will be pretty annoying and potentially deadly for some but mankind would survive. A global pandemic though makes me a lot more nervous.
Again, with no scientific evidence whatsoever, suspect this Coronavirus will not be the Pandemic to threaten humanity, but it could be very severe if it spreads worldwide and wouldn't be surprised if something worse happens in the future. As populations increase, travel increased and people are increasingly living in large urban conurbations something like the black death now would spread like wildfire. And I am not entirely sure we are much better prepared today than we were in the 14th Century, hospitals rely on a consistent level of patients, go from 100 patients a day to 100,000 patients a day and hospitals are pretty much useless. Not to mention how every public and private service would break down due to staff shortages and panic.
|
|
r00lish67
Member of DD Central
Posts: 2,692
Likes: 4,048
|
Post by r00lish67 on Jan 28, 2020 10:36:34 GMT
Some interesting literature around on the impact to the stock market of pandemics, e.g. this onePuts quite a psychological bar up to measure against when you read things like (to paraphrase) "Bit difficult to measure the impact of the Spanish flu, which killed 20 million people, because the first world war was starting as well". Erm hadn't the great war just finished rather than started. Yes, you're quite right, apologies. Still...
|
|
|
|
Post by samford71 on Jan 28, 2020 12:52:18 GMT
It's going to get worse.
I know this because it hasn't been on front cover of The Economist yet. The Economist is one of the best contrarian signals in existance. Once it's on the front cover and they are bleating what a crisis it's going to be, you can be sure the problem has peaked ...
|
|
