How will Covid-19/Coronavirus Affect my Alternative Investment Portfolio? Part 34: October 18
Updated: Sep 6, 2023
U.S. progress fighting second death wave continues to fizzle out; World round up: Spain may be turning the corner, while rest of Europe skids further out of control; State round up: virus surges further and faster across multiple U.S. regions as winter approaches; How the U.S. pandemic is fundamentally changing: more widespread and more rural; Georgia's bellwether economy finally shows slow improvement, but ominous clouds may loom on the horizon; No rest for the weary: economy takes yet another hit from more massive unemployment; Financial cliff update: one step forward and one step back; History suggests U.S.'s November election unlikely to change total real estate returns; The grueling health battles of Covid-19 "Long Haulers"; Study suggests Covid-19 might live for weeks in winter on cash, touchscreens, door handles and grab rails; Johnson & Johnson's vaccine trial halted for safety concerns as it becomes second adenovirus-based vaccine to go into "time-out"; Eli Lilly's Covid-19 antibody treatment becomes the third medicine halted due to safety concerns; Pfizer joins Moderna in targeting late November for Covid-19 vaccine emergency-use approval; Study finds first generation vaccines are "unlikely" to end the pandemic or get us to herd immunity; Update on my investment strategy.
(Usual disclaimer: I'm just an investor expressing my personal opinion and not a registered financial advisor, attorney or accountant. Consult your own financial professionals before making any financial decisions. Code of Ethics: I / we do not accept any money from any sponsor or platform for anything, including postings, reviews, referring investors, affiliate leads or advertising. Nor do we negotiate special terms for ourselves in the club above what we negotiate for the benefit of members.).
Quick Summary
This week, there was a ton of new virus-related economic and health info.
This article is part of a multi-article series that's been published weekly since the pandemic began, back in March 2020. It started with three introductory articles on the virus and its effect on the economy and on alternative investment classes. Then it moved on to weekly updates on the latest and greatest developments (along with weekly updates on my evolving personal portfolio strategy). You can see the links to every article in the series here.
U.S. Progress Fighting Second Death Wave Continues to Fizzle Out
For the 27th week in a row, the United States battled the coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2, which causes the Covid-19 disease. And as of Saturday morning, the death toll had climbed to 223,681 (versus 218,685 last Saturday morning).
Nine weeks ago, the U.S. turned the corner on the second wave of deaths, and wrestled it down lower for six weeks. Then, three weeks ago, progress stopped and deaths ominously plateaued. How did things go this week?
For the fourth week in a row, the U.S. made no progress. And virus deaths remained stuck on the same plateau.
If we're unable to make clear progress and deaths remain high, then the overwhelming consensus of economists is that this would sabotage hopes of a quick, V-shaped recovery. Instead, the recovery would assume a different shape (W-shaped, U-shaped, etc.). This would be slower, involve more long-term damage to both health and economy, and potentially cause problems for some or many consumers, businesses and investments. (See part 14 for more information on the possible "recovery shapes" and their ramifications).
Since this is potentially so important, let's take a look at one of the leading indicators of upcoming deaths: virus infections. Virus infections tend to lead deaths by anywhere from 2 to 8 weeks (depending on how long it takes someone to die and how long it takes their particular location to report the information). These case numbers are not completely reliable due to testing labs' difficulties, in many parts of the country, with getting results back on time. In fact, some states are not reporting all of the positive tests (specifically, the antigen tests). But they can still provide a clue of what might lie ahead with deaths.
How do virus infections look, this week?
For the fourth week in a row, infections moved in the wrong direction and increased. So for yet another week, the third wave continues to gain strength.
As we discussed earlier, a third wave was expected by many. Back in May, Memorial Day weekend ended up triggering the ceasing of all progress against the first death wave and ultimately kicked off the second. And many health experts warned that Labor Day (September 7th) could be a repeat if people didn't take better precautions. (See "Forgetting History and Doomed to Repeat It: Will Labor Day Launch the Third Wave, like Memorial Day Kicked Off the Second Wave?" ).
Unfortunately, so far they've been right. Still, we don't know what size this wave will be, or how long it will last. So, we'll continue to watch.
World Round up: Spain May Be Turning the Corner, While Rest of Europe Skids Further Out of Control
How did other countries do this week?
As we discussed in part six, South Korea uses an aggressive mixture of the Three T's of epidemic control (testing, tracing and treatment). And through most of the epidemic, it has been one of the world leaders in both minimizing deaths (one of the lowest per million) and also minimizing economic damage (their economy is now mostly open and growth is projected to barely shrink this year. In comparison, the U.S. still has significant closures and is projected to take a -5.9% hit to GDP).
This week, South Korea looked like this:
This week was down and up. But overall, they appear to have turned the corner on their third wave and are now beating it down. Still, it's early, so we will continue to monitor.
Either way, the biggest positive for South Korea is that even at their highest and worst peak in all of their death waves, their rates have been extraordinarily low compared to virtually every other country in the world. (See chart below for comparison to other countries.) And this is been a major factor allowing them to keep their economy open and suffer far less damage than everyone else.
Meanwhile, Sweden has opted for a lockdown-lite strategy (see part 8). So the hope is been that if this works well, it might be a workable model for other countries looking to cope with the virus.
Note, Sweden has actually implemented some lockdown measures and applied the 3 T's: they've shut down grade schools, prohibited gatherings larger than 50, instructed elderly people to stay home and young people to work remotely, enacted social distancing rules at restaurants, etc. Additionally, they have more recently added extensive testing, contact tracing and micro quarantine rules. For example, when a person tests positive, they and their entire family are required to quarantine for 5 to 7 days (although school children receive an exemption). Many point out that these kinds of rules would be difficult to implement in some other countries (like the U.S.).
Still, they also never went into the full-on lockdown seen for various stretches of time in many other countries.
So how is Sweden doing? Here's how they look this week:
Sweden started the week with an uncomfortable bump up, but then ended about the same as last week.
Some of Sweden's achievements are most likely due to unique advantages that other countries can't duplicate. That includes an extraordinarily large number of people who live alone, are young and have no children (versus countries like the U.S., which contain a lot more families).
And when compared to other Scandinavian countries, which have similar demographics, Sweden's road to this point has been extremely bumpy. Their death rate has been many times worse than those neighbors. And it's even been many times worse than poorer countries who have controlled the disease well (and who lack all their built-in advantages). However, Sweden has hoped that if they continued to push down their death curve, they eventually might be able to make up their deficit.
How is Sweden doing there? To see, we need to look at deaths per million. Unlike raw deaths, this puts countries of different sizes on an equal playing field. Here are the numbers this week:
For the fourth month in a row, Sweden has maintained its lead ahead of both the United States and United Kingdom (see more on the UK below).
On the other hand, those two countries are among the worst performers in the world. So simply outdoing them isn't that difficult. And Sweden's numbers are still stratospherically bad at about 580 deaths per million. This is about five times worse than the average country in the world.
And again, when compared to its next-door neighbors with similar demographic advantages, it's doing almost 6 times worse than Denmark, almost 10 times worse than Finland, and 12 times worse than Norway. Also, compared to the best-of-show countries, it's almost 100 times worse than South Korea and almost 2000 times worse than Taiwan.
Many health experts believe we will likely get an effective vaccine/treatment later this year, and perhaps a rollout to wider populations sometime in mid-2021. If so, then there may not be enough time for Sweden to ever catch up. On the other hand, the Swedish model could still prove itself on deaths, if other things happen. It's possible we may not get an effective medicine; and/or the pandemic could mutate, leading it to run wilder than expected in 2021; and/or other countries may stumble while Sweden doesn't (which is what happened with the U.S. in the graph above).
The final big issue for Sweden to overcome is that lockdown lite has thus far failed in its main goal: protecting its economy. The country is still expected to plunge into a severe recession (their GDP is projected to be -5.6% in 2020, versus -5.9% for the U.S.). This is a bit better than the average -8.1% projected for the Euro Zone, but is not the large benefit many hoped to see. But again, if they can sustain their progress against the virus, then their economic outlook could improve as well. For now, it still appears that Sweden has suffered the worst of both worlds (receiving more damage to both its economy and its public health than have others). We'll continue to watch.
Meanwhile, in Europe, health experts had previously warned a second death wave was likely to occur, due to the loosening of traveling restrictions, reopening of schools, and public weariness/resistance to following precautions, and possibly also as a result of cooling weather.
And sure enough, the second wave hit numerous countries across the continent, which has caused them to tighten restrictions again. As we discussed in previous weeks, this tightening has included locking down cities that have been affected, restricting specific industries, reducing movement and requiring stronger adherence to antivirus guidelines.
Among the first to get hit was the popular travel destination of Spain. And they've been battling an escalating second wave for two months. How did they do this week?
For the third week in a row, virus deaths in Spain appear to have plateaued. So at least they aren't increasing, even though they remain at record highs for this wave. So perhaps Spain is finally getting on top of things. We'll see how things look next week.
Meanwhile, here's the U.K. and France:
Both had very bad weeks with escalating deaths.
On Wednesday, French President Emmanuel Macron said, “Our intensive care wards are under unsustainable pressure." He also announced a state of emergency and a 9 PM to 6 AM curfew for Paris and eight other big cities. The goal is to try to curb private parties and gatherings by young adults, believed to be one of the biggest sources of spread.
Meanwhile in the U.K., authorities announced that Londoners would be banned from socializing with other households in any indoor setting, starting midnight on Friday.
Meanwhile, the Netherlands also saw an escalation in second wave deaths:
On Tuesday, Netherlands Prime Minister Mark Rutte announced that new infections had topped 7,000 per day and the country was being put on "partial lockdown" for a minimum of four weeks. All cafés, restaurants and bars are now shut down, and mask wearing is now obligatory in all indoor public spaces and schools.
Across Europe as a whole, the pandemic continued to escalate in multiple areas:
Unfortunately, this wasn't a good week for Europe, and the pandemic continued to grow in multiple areas across the continent.
And in the week ending in October 11, the continent hit a record high for number of weekly infections since the pandemic began with almost 700,000 cases.
Jonas Schmidt-Chanasit, a virologist at the Bernhard Nocht Institute in Hamburg, said:
“Parts of Europe have lost control. Authorities are no longer able to influence the spread of the virus.”
One example might be the Czech Republic:
They went into a strict lockdown early in the pandemic, and this kept deaths at very low levels. But, when the second wave hit, authorities reacted much more slowly. Despite surges more than a month ago, they didn't act until last week to close cultural and sport facilities. And as deaths continue to mount, they announced this Wednesday that bars and schools are closing as well.
Andrej Babis, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, warned on Thursday that the situation is “catastrophic” and that the country was running out of time to put adequate healthcare infrastructure in place. “We urgently need to build spare capacity. The forecast is not good.”
Almost 10,000 new infections were reported in the country on Thursday, which is the most since the pandemic began. And nearly half of all confirmed infections there have been recorded in the past two weeks.
State Round Up: Virus Surges Further and Faster Across Multiple U.S. Regions As Winter Approaches.
For the last 15 weeks, we've closely watched individual U.S. states to get insights into what might happen next at the national level. First, we saw the second wave of infections (and eventually deaths) start in the Sunbelt and spread across the country. In response, many states put in place virus control measures, including reinstatements of key portions of lockdowns and rules mandating the wearing of masks (in more than 50% of states).
The Sunbelt states made huge progress, but this was accompanied by surges in the Midwest and Northeast. And in the last couple of weeks, the virus has been surging amid school re-openings, the Labor Day weekend and, perhaps, the colder weather in the north).
What happened this week?
Unfortunately, it was a bad one. A total of 44 states and the District of Columbia reported higher infections than a month ago, in mid-September. Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, New Mexico, North Dakota, Montana and Colorado all set unwanted records for highest new infections. And unlike the early pandemic, which was confined to coastal cities, the virus is now spreading fastest in rural communities in the heartland. However, few regions appear to be completely spared.
Let's start with Wisconsin:
This is an ugly graph, where everything is going wrong. New virus infections are escalating rapidly. And unlike last week, deaths are also now clearly at record highs as well.
In Wednesday, in a scene reminiscent of the early pandemic, Wisconsin opened a field hospital on the grounds of the Wisconsin State Fair Park outside of Milwaukee. Eventually, this will be able to treat more than 500 patients. The state has also implemented new public health measures in recent weeks.
Wisconsin Department of Health Services secretary-designee Andrea Palm said on Thursday: “We know that this is going to get worse before it gets better. Stay home. Wear a mask. Stay six feet apart. Wash your hands frequently.”
Meanwhile, here's what happened to Montana:
This was also a bad week for Montana. Like last week, new infections continued to climb. But, this week, deaths clearly hit a new pandemic high as well.
Early this week, Yellowstone County, which is the state's most populous county, reported 98 percent of the inpatient beds were occupied. The next day, they reported a record 301 patients hospitalized by Covid-19.
How about Illinois?
Illinois also set a record high for new infections in the pandemic. Unlike the previous two states, at least deaths are lower than in the initial pandemic wave. But on the other hand, they are still climbing and moving in the wrong direction.
How about North Dakota?
Last week's doubly bad trend continued with escalating infections and deaths in North Dakota.
Renae Mock, director of Bismarck-Burleigh Public Health, said on Monday that North Dakota has only about 20 intensive-care unit beds available. And some rural facilities have had to send patients to other states.
However, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum did not announce any course changes and instead chose to focus on the positive. He emphasized the state’s 7% positivity rate, as “an achievement compared to many, many other states that have never been in the spot to have this low of a positivity rate and have their economy open.”
How about South Dakota?
South Dakota suffered another bad week, with both record levels of new infections and deaths. And they now lead the nation in Covid-19 hospitalizations per capita.
Despite this, South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem claimed this week that "the results have been incredible." She credited the success to the fact that the state “didn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach."
How did Wyoming do this week?
Like other states, infections continued to escalate. On the positive side, deaths continue to stay plateaued.
However, unless hospitalizations get under control, that could also change quickly. And, State Health Officer Alexia Harrist said this week that:
"The effects are straining a health-care system that also has to treat patients with illnesses other than the coronavirus. It’s important to remember that many of Wyoming’s hospitals are small, with just a handful of beds available for the most seriously ill patients."
Hospitalizations tend to be a leading cause of death, and they are ticking up, not just in Wyoming, but across the country:
For example, on Sunday, Indiana, North Dakota, Montana, Utah and Nebraska reported record high numbers of coronavirus-related hospitalizations.
How the U.S. Pandemic is Fundamentally Changing: More Widespread and More Rural
Meanwhile, the spread of the pandemic has fundamentally changed from the way it was even a few months ago. Here is a cumulative region by region graph that shows how the virus has surged and ebbed through different stages of the crisis in different areas:
The original infection wave from the early pandemic was driven by the Northeast (New York and New Jersey) before it subsided. Then, the second wave was driven by the Sunbelt (South), before it also subsided. And now, the third spike is caused by all areas in concert experiencing an increase.
Other things are also different about this wave. Originally, it was the big cities that were hit most by viral infections, but that has changed and now rural America is driving them:
In the United States, cities are strongholds for one political party, while rural America is a voting bastion for the other. So unsurprisingly, the same correlation is also occurring when the data is viewed through a lens of political party control. And the situation has completely flipped from earlier on:
William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University, said:
“If you take a look from 30,000 feet, most states have rising case numbers with no downward trends to be seen. That is troubling as winter approaches. All of us anticipate Covid is going to increase this winter.”
Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, had an even more dire prognosis:
“We are arriving at the Covid-19 perfect storm. The current increases are only the start of a long winter ahead. One bright spot is that hospitals have become far more adept, and have more tools available to treat the virus... And increased testing is catching more cases early... “[But] We’re just getting started. And how bad it’s going to be is dependent on how the population responds. Right now, up to a third of the public doesn’t believe this is real; they believe it’s a hoax.”
Georgia's Bellwether Economy Finally Shows Some Slow Improvement, But Ominous Clouds May Loom On The Horizon
One of the most important questions for investments (as well as for the health of the country) is "what will the shape and speed of the recovery be?" If it's V-shaped and quick, then many investments will be just fine. On the other hand, if it's one of the other shapes (U-shaped, swoosh, etc.), then some or many investments could run into problems. (See part 14 for more information on the possible "recovery shapes" and their ramifications).
To monitor the evolving situation, we've been watching Georgia very closely. It was one of the first states to reopen. So we expected this to make it a useful early indicator of what could be in store for some other parts of the nation.
Back on April 24, Georgia Governor Brian Kemp reopened nail salons, hairdressers, bowling alleys and gyms (as long as they followed state protocols). Then, three days later, restaurants and theaters were also allowed to reopen. So they've effectively been open for almost 6 months.
How are they doing? Since there's no official government or state data on this, we've previously looked at Placer.ai. This is a service which tracks mobile phone usage to different types of businesses to measure foot traffic. And we will look at Georgia's four primary Covid-19 sensitive industries: restaurants, retail, fitness, and hotels.
So in the category of restaurants, let's take a look at Burger King. This is a fast food/low-cost restaurant with considerable drive-in business. So it would be expected to do better in this recession versus a higher cost/non-drive-in oriented restaurants. How is it doing?
On one hand, year on year foot traffic is only -9%. While in a typical recession, this would be considered pretty bad, this is a lot better than many others are doing. So this is a relatively decent result. Still, restaurants are low profit margin businesses with many fixed costs. So an approximate 10% reduction in revenue would be expected to be extremely painful. And, improvement has been choppy. If they can improve a little bit and maintain it, that would be huge. But on the other hand, they so far have not been able to regain the same improvement that they had achieved back in early June. We'll continue to watch them and see.
Let's take a look at retail with Barnes & Noble. This is a bookstore, which might be expected to be suffering at the hands of online bookstores during a pandemic. Here's how they look:
Unfortunately, they are at a very painful and unsustainable looking -29% foot traffic versus a year ago. Sadly these numbers are at bankruptcy-inducing levels.
Next let's look at fitness with Crunch Fitness. This is a discount gym that would be expected to be doing better than other higher cost gyms in a recession. Here's how they look:
On one hand, year on year foot traffic was an unpleasant -11%. And in a low margin, high fixed cost business, this does not look like a comfortable result. On the other hand, we've seen other gyms absolutely decimated. So in comparison, things could be a lot worse. At the same time, they most likely still need to improve to get to profitability. And the current trend of the last several weeks is getting slightly worse (instead of getting slightly better) versus the best performance in early September.
How about hotels?
Holiday Inn Express is a discount hotel that we would expect to be doing better than higher cost alternatives in a recession. Here's how they did:
This is a pretty decent result at only -4% foot traffic versus a year ago. If they could simply maintain this, then they might be in pretty good shape.
So, while there is still considerable pain, this overall has been the best-looking results we've seen for the entire pandemic. On the other hand, the wildcard factor is always present, in the up and down swings of the virus. Getting Covid-19 under control is generally key to improving business. And, surging infections and deaths are usually bad for business, as customers stay away. Here's what Georgia is currently looking like:
Until recently, Georgia has been doing relatively well, with decreasing infections and deaths. However over the last couple of weeks, infections have started to increase. (This is similar to what we've seen across the country. See previous section).
So, Covid may or may not present an obstacle in the upcoming weeks. We'll continue to monitor and see.
No Rest for the Weary: Economy Takes Yet Another Hit from More Massive Unemployment
Unemployment has historically been one of the most reliable indicators of when the U.S. is entering a recession and when it has recovered. That's why we examine it very closely every week. And unfortunately, over the last 26 weeks, the economy has been hammered over and over again by massive levels of new unemployment. And each week has set records, each higher than any previous week before the pandemic.
This week was no different, with 898,000 people newly unemployed. Not only was there no improvement from the previous week, but it was actually slightly worse than the 840,000 who lost jobs last week.
However, as we mentioned last week, some of the data was not completely up-to-date. For the third week in a row, California, which is the largest state in the country, didn't report any data to the Department of Labor. This was intentional, so they could catch up on a backlog of filings and improve their systems. So, this week they again repeated the numbers from before this hiatus. And many analysts believe this has the effect of making them look artificially lower. We'll see, next week, when California comes back online.
Meanwhile, as we've talked about every week for the last several months: "continuing claims" is an even more useful statistic to look at within this report. That's because jobless claims give us only half of the picture: how many jobs have been lost. The continuing claims number removes the people who have been rehired from this. And so, that tells us how many continue to be unemployed right now. One small caveat, though, is that some people have been unemployed for so long that they have exhausted their state benefits and fall out of this count. The more people that fall out, the more this number will understate the true long-term joblessness.
This week, continuing claims were 10.02 million. If accurate, this was a slight drop from the 11 million last week and a modest improvement. But once again, those hoping for a quick improvement in support of a V-shaped recovery were disappointed. And for yet another week, there are still more Americans unemployed now than at the height of the Great Recession.
When people do fall out of this count because they no longer qualify for state benefits, the Pandemic Emergency Unemployment Compensation program (PEUC) takes over. This provides them with an additional 13 weeks of jobless benefits. And PEUC (which is lagged by two weeks) increased by 818,054 to 2.78 million. However, like continuing claims, some people may be exhausting these benefits and falling out of this count as well. And when that happens, this number will again understate the true long-term joblessness.
Which areas lost the most jobs? Joblessness rose the most across multiple states including Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, Georgia and Washington. And the PEUC figures surged in California, New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
The senior economist at Wells Fargo, Sarah House, said:
“I think we’ve seen the labor market recovery stall out. Given that jobless claims can be volatile even in normal times, it’s not yet certain that the jobs rebound is reversing, but I think we’ve seen a heightened risk of the labor market really backsliding...
As we see more and more people shift to the ranks of the long-term unemployed, it suggests that this is not going to be nearly as quick of a downturn and that there is going to be long-term damage that results from what otherwise looks like a pretty short recession."
Bloomberg economist Eliz Winger said:
“The trend in initial claims, excluding California, has clearly stalled... The recovery in the labor market will continue to slow down as the economy and the job market cannot operate at full capacity until a vaccine is widely available.”
On Wednesday, Federal Reserve Vice-Chairman Richard Carida said the road to full recovery will be long and uncertain.
“While economic recovery since the spring collapse has been robust, let us not forget that full economic recovery from the Covid-19 recession has a long way to go. It will take some time to return to the levels of economic activity and employment that prevailed at the business cycle peak in February, and additional support from monetary -- and likely fiscal -- policy will be needed,”
However, both houses of Congress and the White House would have to agree to such fiscal policy to make it possible. And in previous weeks, they have not been able to come to agreement. See next section on "financial cliff" (the expiration of supplemental government unemployment and exhaustion of one-time stimulus) for the latest developments this week.
Meanwhile, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported that the average American's income fell in August by the most in three months due to the "financial cliff."
Credit Suisse Group's chief economist, James Sweeney, said:
“Labor income now has a big headwind when you add the fact that that extra unemployment income has been taken away at the beginning of August and the fact that state and local governments are straining.”
Financial Cliff Update: One Step Forward And One Step Back
As we've discussed over the last several weeks, tens of millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans are either falling off or teetering on the edge of a huge financial cliff. And if it's not resolved well, there could be significant pain for them, the economy, and also businesses and investors in virtually every alternative investment asset class (especially real estate and private equity).
Why does this cliff exist? Well, so far, the economy has taken unprecedented damage through record-setting unemployment. But, this has been mitigated by the $3 trillion Covid-19 stimulus package passed by Congress at the beginning of the pandemic. Unemployed workers got an extra $600 per week and many citizens got free stimulus checks ($1200 per adult and $500 per child). Also, governments at the federal, state, and local levels passed moratoriums on evictions and foreclosures that let unemployed people stay in their homes.
None of these programs was perfect, and we talked in past weeks about how snafus caused millions to be unable to get much deserved and needed aid. But still, these programs have contained untold amounts of damage. Zach Parolin, a researcher at Columbia University, estimates that together, these programs stopped 17 million people from dropping below the poverty line.
But, more recently, there's been a huge problem. The $600 unemployment payments expired months ago, the stimulus payments were a one-time event, and many of the moratoriums have ended as well. And unfortunately, the two political parties and the president were unable to come to agreement on a new stimulus law.
Here's a brief recap:
Back in May, one political party (which we will call the "large stimulus" party) passed a $3.5 trillion stimulus package in the House. But the other party (which we will call the "small stimulus" party), which controls the Senate, wanted to wait and see if stimulus would be necessary or not.
Then in August, the large stimulus party offered to reduce their bill to $2 trillion. The small stimulus party balked and counter-proposed $1 trillion (but was not able to get enough of its own members to approve a counter-bill at that amount). This meant that for a bill to pass the Senate, it would require cooperation between the two parties.
Later in August, the President unilaterally passed executive orders to temporarily pay the unemployed an extra $300-$400. But, the fund from which this money was appropriated has now been exhausted and the President doesn't have the constitutional power to spend new money. So, any real solution requires Congress and the President to cooperate to pass a new law.
In September, the small stimulus party attempted to pass a $650 billion plan (nicknamed the "skinny package") in the Senate, but could not muster enough votes to bring it to the floor to begin discussion.
In early October, a bipartisan group of 50 lawmakers came up with a proposal to split the difference. But it did not gain any traction.
Two weeks ago, the large stimulus party passed a new $2.2 trillion stimulus bill (to solidify what previously was just a verbal counteroffer). And Treasury Secretary Mnuchin upped the White House offer from $1 trillion to $1.6 trillion by repurposing some unused small business relief funds. Both sides agreed on another stimulus payment for up to $1200 to individuals, aid for airlines, coronavirus testing and extending the PPP (Paycheck Protection Program). However, by the end of the week, the progress had come undone, and there was still no agreement.
One week ago was a roller coaster week. The President pronounced the negotiations dead, then a few days later announced them restarted and then a few days later said he was willing to go even higher than the opposing political party had proposed.
So what happened this week?
On Thursday, Treasury Secretary Stephen Mnuchin (negotiating for the White House) announced the most progress yet, and said that he and the large stimulus party were discussing a deal somewhere between $1.8 trillion and $2.2 trillion. Additionally, both sides cited progress on one of the large stimulus party's main priorities: the implementation of a national strategic testing plan to fight the virus (which was something the White House had originally opposed).
However, this week, renewed opposition emerged from the small stimulus party in the Senate. The Senate leader said he would move to put a much smaller, $500 billion package on the floor. And he claimed that the President is "willing to go higher than my members are." In counter response, the President tweeted: "Go big or go home!!!" A few days later, the Senate leader appeared to give no ground, saying: "I'm proposing what I think is appropriate".
As of today, Saturday, the potential of future stimulus is still uncertain.
Senior Housing Hammered As Occupancy Drops to Record Low
On Friday, the National Investment Center for Seniors Housing & Care (NIC) reported that senior housing occupancy in Q3 fell a brutal 2.6 percentage points. The drop from 84.7% to 82.1% marked the second consecutive quarter of deteriorating occupancy. And NIC says the industry is now experiencing its "largest drop in occupancy on record."
Assisted living facilities and independent living were hit the hardest. These fell in Q3 by 2.9 percentage points (to 79.1%) and 2.4 percentage points (to 84.9%) respectively.
Greg Limoncelli, a partner with Akerman (legal firm that represents financial institutions and borrowers) summarized the industry's woes:
“COVID has pushed revenues down in senior housing. It has pushed expenses up and made people afraid to go into facilities. As a general rule, COVID has really hit the industry hard.”
Additionally, properties saw no relief on the supply side, as the largest number of new facilities were built since early 2009. Chuck Harry, NIC’s Chief Operating Officer, said:
“This reflects the relatively robust lending and development environment of 18 to 24 months ago that supported construction starts, back then, and which now are completed properties entering the market."
Senior housing acquisitions also plummeted to a record low in the quarter at 58 deals, according to Irving Levin Associates. That was a 44% drop year on year versus Q3 2019.
History Suggests U.S. November Election Unlikely To Change Total Real Estate Returns
With a presidential election coming up, many are wondering which political party will win. And many pundits are predicting either great or dire consequences for real estate investing as a result.
However, according to a historical analysis by the National Council of Real Estate Investment Fiduciaries, "the industry generally over-estimates the impact of federal elections on real estate" and "CRE has historically performed well under both Democratic and Republican administrations". And since 1978, the annual returns under both parties have been very similar, with Democrats at 10.3% and Republicans at 8.1%.
DWS points out that the federal elections could impact things like stimulus spending, taxes and investment regulation. And these could have effects "on the margins." Additionally, "[r]eal estate investors should also consider the impacts of state and local elections where issues such as real estate taxes and rent regulation are on the ballot.”
But in general, DWS concludes: "For real estate investors, cyclical considerations, such as the pace of the economic recovery, and secular trends [e.g., e-commerce] will have the greatest impact.
The Grueling Health Battles of Covid 19 "Long Haulers"
Most people think that if they get Covid-19, they probably won't die. And if so, it'll simply be a "two weeks and done" disease, like a bad cold.
But, as we've talked about in past weeks, numerous studies are showing this isn't necessarily true. And significant numbers of people who get the disease are actually hit with debilitating, long-term, chronic symptoms that they (and society) may have to deal with for a long time after. And many of the so-called "long haulers" are younger and self-report as being in perfect health beforehand.
On Thursday, the U.K. National Institute for Health Research posted a comprehensive review of the evidence of this concept (which they call "Long Covid"). And they concluded that patients infected by the virus have continued to suffer disorders in the brain, lung, heart, gut, liver, skin and other parts of the body. Some of the symptoms of Long Covid are extremely debilitating such as brain fog and extreme exhaustion. Others are milder, like hair loss and the inability to taste and smell.
The researchers also found that for many people, recovery is not a destination, but a long multi-step process. Elaine Maxwell, lead author of the NIHR report, said:
"“A common theme is that symptoms arise in one physiological system then abate, only for symptoms to arise in a different system. The overwhelming message is that this is not a linear condition. Many [patients] suffer a rollercoaster of symptoms moving around the body, from which they do not recover.”
This study also referred to other studies' results:
A team from Italy reported that 87% of people discharged from a Rome hospital were still experiencing at least one symptom 60 days after disease onset. And 55% had three or more symptoms, which included fatigue (53%), difficulty in breathing (43%), joint pain (27%), chest pain (22%). And 40% said it had reduced the quality of their life.
A June 5th study by the National Health Service (NHS) of England estimated that approximately 45% of the 95,000 patients admitted to hospitals across England with the disease would need ongoing support.
A September 7th study by Public Health England which found that 10% of mild Covid-19 cases (where the person was not hospitalized) were still reporting symptoms more than four weeks later. And a much larger number of hospitalized cases reported continuing symptoms at eight weeks or more after discharge.
A King's College London survey of 4 million patients suggested that between 10 to 20% of infections lead to complications that last at least a month or more.
The NIHR authors called for a working definition of Long Covid to be agreed upon as soon as possible.
“The absence of a definition may impact the ability of patients to have their symptoms and experiences properly recognised and treated by healthcare services, which can in turn have a further psychological impact, especially for non-hospitalised patients who were never formally diagnosed.”
Additionally, last week, the U.K.'s NHS committed 10 million pounds (about $12.9 million) to setting up a regional network of Long Covid clinics to treat patients.
Study Suggests Covid 19 Might Live For Weeks In Winter On Cash, Touchscreens, Door Handles And Grab Rails.
Many health experts believe that Covid-19 spreads primarily by aerosols and respiratory droplets in the air. However, fomite transmission (meaning transmission by touching objects) has been proven to occur in other coronaviruses (such as porcine epidemic diarrhea virus). And it has been suspected to occur with Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS) and several others. As a result, the U.S. CDC warns, "a person may get COVID-19 by touching the surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or eyes."
But how long can a virus survive on different surfaces? We've discussed previous studies suggesting that it can live for a day on softer surfaces like cardboard and up to three on harder surfaces like metal. And a study we saw a couple of weeks ago found that Covid-19 could survive for up to three weeks on frozen fish. But previously, no study had looked at a wide variety of surfaces and subjected them to different temperature tests.
That changed this week, when the Australian Center for Disease Preparedness released their detailed study. They looked at several common materials that people typically come into contact with in everyday life, like banknote paper (for cash), glass (for touchscreens), metals (for grab handles and rails), vinyl, and cotton cloth. And they tested each one of these under multiple temperatures, as well.
One caveat is that the tests were done in the dark, since it's believed that sustained ultraviolet light can deactivate the virus, and they were uncertain how much light to which the tests should be exposed. So this may not reflect what would be expected to happen in a real-world environment.
The results were posted to the scientific periodical: Virology Journal. And if accurate, the results were startling and worrying.
At high temperatures (40°C which corresponds to 104°F), the virus didn't last long. It was destroyed after just 24 hours on cotton cloth. And in 48 hours, it was gone from all the remaining surfaces they tested.
However, when they dropped the temperature moderately (to 30°C which is 86°F), the change in results was surprisingly dramatic. At that temperature, the virus remained viable for a stunning three days on vinyl and cotton cloth. And it survived for an entire week on stainless steel, polymer notes (currency) and glass.
Then they dropped the temperature again to 20°C, which corresponds to 60°F. At that temperature, the virus thrived and stayed alive for 14 days on the best-performing surface, which was cotton cloth. In contrast, all the other nonporous surfaces allowed the virus to survive for an almost unbelievable 28 days. The surfaces were: glass, polymer notes, stainless steel, vinyl and paper notes.
These researchers pointed out that other researchers have also come up with disturbingly long survival times for coronaviruses on certain surfaces. Research on the original SARS virus found that it could survive up to 28 days at room temperature and 40 to 50% humidity on plastic. And a recent study on Covid-19 on PPE suggested the virus could survive up to 21 days on both plastic and N95 mask material.
China has taken the risk of spread via currency seriously, and has been decontaminating its paper currency since January. The researchers also noted that both the U.S. and South Korea have quarantined banknotes during the pandemic.
The authors also suggested that the survivability of coronavirus in cool temperatures and on stainless steel might help explain the outbreaks linked to meat processing and cold storage in the United States.
Johnson & Johnson's Vaccine Trial Halted For Safety Concerns and Becomes The Second Adenovirus-based Vaccine To Go Into "Time-Out"
Previously, we discussed how the AstraZeneca vaccine trials were halted last month after a patient got seriously sick. It's not unusual for a vaccine to be paused for safety concerns, so it may or may not be a sign of something more serious. And, a few countries have authorized its resumption. Still, all is not smooth sailing for the vaccine as the United States has not been willing to allow trials to restart.
Then, on late Monday, Johnson & Johnson said it would pause its own vaccine trials to investigate an illness by an anonymous study participant. They did not give any details, but simply said:
“We are committed to providing transparent updates throughout the clinical development process of our vaccine candidate. Adverse events – illnesses, accidents, etc. -- even those that are serious, are an expected part of any clinical study, especially large studies.”
Medical experts noted that these could be just temporary glitches. On the other hand, others noted that both of these halted vaccine candidates have a common feature. Both are based on adenovirus technology which uses genetically engineered cold germs. And this technique has had mixed results in the past.
In this type of vaccine, researchers modify the virus so that it can't reproduce, and then modify its genes to be the ones they want to give to the patient. Then, inside the body, the viruses naturally add those genomes to cells. If everything works right, this induces the body to produce the viral proteins that will hopefully lead to an immunity against the target disease.
But, sometimes, theory has worked better than practice. In the 1990s, researchers added genes to an adenovirus to cure a genetic disorder by adding a missing enzyme. And the results were tragic, with the first patient who was treated dying from a severe immune reaction. Ron Crystal, a researcher at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, who pioneered the use of adenoviruses as vectors, said:
"You take out the genes that control the ability of the virus to proliferate. And [then you] put in your genes. [But] we didn’t realize how immunogenic these viruses were."
This death caused the technology to be abandoned for decades, until it was revived in the last couple of years. Typically, the vaccines are now built around a much smaller dose of the adenovirus. And in that amount, Crystal says:
"The immune reaction is not an issue. If anything, vaccine designers see the body's immune reaction as a potential advantage. They’re essentially acting as an adjuvant, and that amplifies the immune response."
And more recently, some experiments involving adenoviruses have succeeded. Earlier this year, a J&J vaccine based partially on an adenovirus was approved to fight Ebola. And more are hoped to be approved soon.
On the other hand, other scientists are more cautious. Lindsey Baden, an infectious disease specialist at Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a podcaster sponsored by the New England Journal of Medicine, said:
"With such new technologies, safety is difficult to know. If you’ve studied it in 1,000 people, you don’t know a 1-in-10,000 risk; if you’ve studied it in 10,000 people, you don’t know a 1 in 100,000, and so on.”
Bloomberg Intelligence analyst, Sam Fazeli, said:
“While it could be a coincidence, there’s still the possibility that adenoviral vector vaccines run a higher risk of rare side effects -- such as autoimmune attacks like transverse myelitis -- than those of Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna or Novavax.”
And Michael Kinch, a vaccine specialist at Washington University in St. Louis, said that at this point, we don't have enough information to know:
“Is this just random chance? First and foremost, there’s bad luck. If it turns out there’s a correlation and a causation, then the conversation very quickly turns.”
Eli Lilly's Covid-19 Antibody Treatment Becomes the Third Medicine Halted Due to Safety Concerns
Meanwhile, Eli Lilly announced on Tuesday that the independent safety board monitoring its monoclonal antibody treatment for the virus, has halted trials due to a safety concern. The final phase 3 human trials were being conducted by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and had been treating 300 hospitalized Covid-19 patients since August.
Antibody therapies are believed to help reduce the chances that an infected person develops a severe case, when given early. A similar therapy from Regeneron was given to the President of the United States, when he was infected. It's also being studied as a prophylaxis to prevent infection.
Lilly said it is supportive of the decision by the independent monitoring board to “cautiously ensure the safety of the patients participating in this study."
Pfizer Joins Moderna in Targeting Late November for Covid-19 Vaccine Emergency Use Approval
On Friday, Pfizer said that if its phase 3 trials are successful, the firm will seek emergency use authorization for the vaccine in the US in late November.
With some of the previous front runners now halted, Pfizer has become one of the leading candidates in the race to be first.
Moderna is slightly behind, saying it hopes to get preliminary efficacy data by late November. Both companies began late stage trials at the end of July, but Pfizer has a slight edge, because the Moderna treatment administers the second dose 4 weeks after the first (versus 3 weeks for Pfizer). Additionally, Moderna slowed down its enrollment to increase diversity among its participants.
Study Finds First Generation Vaccines Are "Unlikely" to End the Pandemic or Get Us to Herd Immunity
The progress on potential vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna is very encouraging. At the same time, health experts warn that we don't yet know if they will pass testing successfully. And others have gone further, and warned that even if they do pass testing, the public may have unrealistic expectations of what happens next.
In a paper titled "What can we expect from first-generation COVID-19 vaccines?" published in the medical journal, The Lancet, two researchers laid out the potential disconnect between the general public's expectations and reality.
"A first generation of COVID-19 vaccines is expected to gain approval as soon as the end of 2020 or early 2021. A popular assumption is that these vaccines will provide population immunity that can reduce transmission of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and lead to a resumption of pre-COVID-19 normalcy. [But] the notion ... might be based on illusory assumptions."
Why? We've discussed some of the reasons in previous weeks. Herd immunity happens when enough people in the community are resistant to disease that it can no longer spread, which causes a pandemic to end. Some estimate that this may require anywhere from 50 to 70% of the population to become resistant. But:
Effectiveness: The head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, says we will need a vaccine that is 85 to 90% effective before people will feel comfortable doing pre-pandemic normal things like walking into a theater without a mask. And we don't yet understand what it takes for the body to produce an effective defense against the virus. So we are especially blind when it comes to predicting how effective these vaccines might be. But many health experts believe first generation vaccines are likely to be similar to flu vaccines, which are often less than 70% effective. And the FDA has said all it will require is a 50% reduction of disease risk to approve a vaccine, which is a very low bar. Such a weak standard alone is believed by most to be far too low to enable a country to quickly hit herd immunity.
And even if these challenges can be surmounted, there are others.
Who will take it? First ask, who will not take it. Almost 1/3 of people in the U.S. have said they will not take a vaccine when it comes out. And when combined with those who are hesitant to take one, the total is almost a half of the population. This presents a serious public health education challenge: how to convince enough people to willingly take a vaccination so that herd immunity can be accomplished?
Who does it work on? Vaccines may be more effective at treating young people, versus the elderly, who are higher at risk. Again this would make it harder to get to herd immunity through vaccines alone (although other treatments might be effective here).
Manufacturing and distribution: It's very unlikely a vaccine can be produced in enough quantities right away to immediately treat everyone that wants it. Most of the vaccines are not expected to hit those levels of production until mid to late 2021, which would further delay resolution of the pandemic in the U.S. Projections for the rest of the world are even slower, with some projecting 2022 - 2023 for full distribution. And further, if the immunity conferred by first generation vaccines doesn't last long, then even more doses will be needed (which will further delay the timetable).
However, the Lancet article also pointed out a new issue that we haven't discussed before. Specifically, researchers have done challenge trials on many first-generation vaccines using monkeys. What this means is that they give the primate the vaccine and then deliberately infect them with Covid-19 afterwards. And while monkeys are not exactly the same as humans, many times they respond very similarly. After doing this, researchers found that while the vaccines caused "reductions in pathology, symptoms and viral load in the lower respiratory tract," they "failed to elicit sterilizing immunity in the upper airways."
What does this mean and why might it be important? Health experts believe the virus typically enters through the upper respiratory system. So, if humans respond similarly to monkeys, then a vaccine that doesn't produce a sterilizing immunity in the upper airway is unlikely to prevent a person from catching the disease. It still might significantly decrease their chances of getting seriously sick or dying. But while infected, they would be presumed to still be able to infect others as well.
Interestingly, the researchers did mention one vaccine that may have achieved sterilizing immunity in the upper airways. This is a second-generation nanoparticle vaccine from Novavax. However, the researchers noted that their study has not yet been peer-reviewed. This vaccine to expected to begin phase 3 human trials this month.
A further X-factor is that, as we've talked about, there have been multiple documented cases of infected people recovering from the disease, producing antibodies and yet getting infected again. The hope is that this is a statistical glitch rather than a typical scenario. But if it's the latter, then that would cause the effectiveness of a vaccine to be greatly reduced as well.
Ultimately, the researchers concluded:
"It will be important to communicate to policy makers and the general public that first-generation vaccines are only one tool in the overall public health response to COVID-19 and unlikely to be the ultimate solution that many expect."
Meanwhile, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Dr. Anthony Fauci, expressed his own opinion on the timeline for a return to normalcy. When asked by actress Jennifer Garner about when Americans could expect to return to theaters, he said:
"I think it's going to be a combination of a vaccine that has been around for almost a year and good public health measures. I would think by the time we get to the end of 2021 - maybe even the middle of 2021."
Dr. Peter Hotez, the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, concurred on Friday, saying:
"First generation vaccines are not magic solutions. So we’ll likely still need to continue masks and contact tracing.”
And Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and public health professor at George Washington University, who previously served as Baltimore’s health commissioner, also agreed, saying:
“We should not be thinking of the vaccine as a silver bullet. It will take months to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people, and the vaccine may be, at best, 75 percent effective.”
Update on My Investment Strategy
Every week, I take a look at the latest developments and data and reevaluate my personal outlook on the possible economic scenarios and my personal investment strategy. This week, I have only minor changes and my strategy is essentially the same as last week.
Treatment: I believe chances are good that we'll have an effective medicine for Covid-19 (i.e. antibody treatment, vaccine, etc.) by fall or winter of this year. And with some luck, we could even have more than one. Unfortunately, it's also unlikely it will be 85%+ effective and that it can be manufactured and distributed in large enough quantities to immediately treat everyone in the U.S. who wants and needs it, until well into 2021. If either happens, then it will not be enough to super-charge the economy right away. And, there may potentially be a huge quality-of-life difference between the treatment-haves and treatment have-nots. This will be divisive and will exacerbate existing tensions and conflicts between rich and poor countries. And it's likely to cause considerable instability in "have-not" countries that could easily cause unexpected global consequences, not just for themselves but also for the U.S. and the world.
Recession? When the U.S. was first hit by the virus, many pundits claimed the U.S. economy was so strong, it would have little to no effect (or if it did, then it would rebound quickly and things would be back to normal in a jiffy). But, after looking at all of the micro data week after week, I said I couldn't see any way the country could avoid plunging into a technical recession (two consecutive quarters of negative GDP growth). Ultimately that happened (-5% in Q1 and -32.9% in Q2). Going forward, I believe Q3 will show strong double digit growth. But this will be only because it's measured relative to the chasm of Q2 (i.e. an almost 40% plunge from 2019). And it will come up disappointingly well-short of the amount needed to "break even" to where things were back in January (and thus well short of a true V- shaped recovery).
Shape of the recovery: In part 14, we talked about how the shape of the recovery (V-shaped, U-shaped, swoosh-shaped, W-shaped, L-shaped, combo-shaped etc.) will have a huge effect on the ultimate outcome of many different investments. So far, pretty much everything that's happened has been much worse than the consensus expected. Pretty much no one saw the virus spreading in the U.S. in any meaningful way. Virtually no one came close to imagining that lock-downs would occur in May. Hundreds of thousands more people have been killed than originally projected. And now, even the later May projections, which maxed out at 200,000 dead, have proven to be too optimistic. Tens of millions more people than expected have lost jobs. The stimulus and unemployment aid was enormous, but had too many unexpected holes and didn't get into the hands of millions who needed it the most. States reopened, but were forced to backtrack. Many businesses have reopened, but customers are staying away. So unfortunately, I don't think a quick, V-shaped recovery is going to happen. I would love to be wrong. I'm getting more and more concerned about a very damaging "W", which could come from the second and/or third waves of the virus. Unfortunately, this is looking more and more likely. My slim hope is that the 3rd wave (from school openings, Labor Day and cooler weather) can be controlled and kept small. If this happens... and if the US government also passes a generous stimulus law... then the worst effects of the additional waves could be mitigated. That's a lot of "if's"... so we'll see. And I'll continue to monitor the data very closely. Currently, I still believe we will have a three-stage combo-shaped recovery that starts off (1) quickly as the first "easy" industries and companies come back online (i.e. v-shaped). But (2) this will peter out as the more difficult ones are unable to return, and a slow swoosh will become apparent. If we get a second (or third) lockdown, then this step (2) will become W-shaped and more painful. Then in fall/winter, (3) I believe we will probably see a treatment and/or vaccine. And if we do, then that would be the trigger for the third stage and an accelerated recovery. But this most likely won't be a straight-V recovery, because it will most likely take time to ramp up production and delivery to enough Americans to push towards herd immunity (not until well into 2021). So the boost will be slower and smaller at first. Also, if the first generation medicines are significantly less effective than 100% (which many health experts believe will be the case), the boost will be even smaller. And all of this will depend on which treatment makes it that far... which we don't know at this point. But, we also could get a little lucky (for example, if the successful vaccine treatment is a newer type that can be scaled up more quickly or is more effective). If so, then the third-stage boost would be faster. If I'm wrong, and we don't get a treatment or vaccine this year, then the economic damage caused by long-term job loss and wage cuts will most likely be very severe, and will further exacerbate (and slow down) whatever type of recovery we do get. That would probably be ugly for the majority of all investments. So let's hope we don't have to find out how that scenario would play out.
Investments: If the above is roughly correct, then it will unfortunately be painful for many individuals and some investors. And some sub-sectors of alternative investing (like certain real estate classes) will come under heavy stress. Many may fold in the coming months. At the same time, I think there will also be an opportunity to purchase dislocated and distressed assets at very favorable pricing and significant discounts. And I believe that patient, discerning investors may be able to take advantage of once-in-a-decade or once-in-a-generation opportunities.
Strategy:
No new investments in real estate or any asset classes that are correlated with the unemployment or the business cycle until there is more clarity about the unknowns concerning the virus and the upcoming financial cliff.
Invest in assets that are coronavirus resistant (and uncorrelated with the business cycle). That includes:
Music royalties (which can actually do better in lockdowns due to increased streaming).
Life settlements (which actually perform better when people are dying faster and in any event aren't directly tied to the business cycle).
Litigation finance (which performs based on winning or losing cases, and also isn't directly tied to the business cycle).
Invest in coronavirus "portfolio insurance" (i.e. an investment that would be expected to do better the longer coronavirus continues or if it gets worse).
N95 Mask Manufacturing Company. If the pandemic should disappear tomorrow (which I personally am not counting on), I would be happy to take a small loss here given that the rest of my portfolio would be doing extremely well. On other hand, if Covid-19 doesn't disappear and things go as I expect (or worse), then this investment could provide a welcome profit boost and improve my diversification.
Continue to hold cash and be patient for dislocated and distressed opportunities. The worse the economic damage, the more chance there will be for those once-in-a-generation or once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.
My opinions and strategy will change if we get some better or worse news on the science side or in some of the other X factors. For example, a new stimulus law could shift things in a more positive direction. And, as I mentioned above, the virus getting out of control again in large areas and forcing large lock-downs a second or third time, could easily make things worse.
Next Article
How will Covid-19/Coronavirus Affect my Alternative Investment Portfolio? Part 35: October 24
U.S. deaths and infections both disappoint and head in wrong direction; World round up: Europe in crisis and the Belgian triple-shortage nightmare; State round up: 3rd infection wave surges across uncomfortably large amounts of the U.S.; Georgia economic update: A mixed bag of good and awful; Economy gets tiny but welcome reprieve on new unemployment; Financial cliff update: Little progress made as the clock continues to tick; Previously immune apartment REITs squeezed by rising vacancies and declining rents; FDA inspectors flags Eli-Lilly's plant for experimental covid-19 vaccine for "major failure of quality assurance"; AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccine trials are back on; Update on my portfolio strategy.
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