- Aug 28, 2014
- 16,540
- 26,088
I learned a pretty good lesson about investing in too many Mutual Funds that I've bought in the past 6-8 month's. Last week I pulled what I thought would be enough out of a large cap and global Mutual funds and went with 1 LT Bond and 1 intermediate bond ETF's....frequent trading restrictions left me stuck with more money in those mutual funds than I would have liked by Wednesday-Thursday and not trading in real time screwed me out of good gains when I went into a 3rd balanced fund to put more in those BF ETF's on Friday morning.....needless to say the BF's jumped up to new highs Friday....I got stuck losing 2 cents a share in the MF instead of making over $2 a share in the LT ETF.....All that aside I am not sure much of the younger generation even looks at individual equities. I think the ones who are active are trading the triple levereged ETF's and either making a mint or getting carried out in body bags.
Royal Caribbean took a nose dive and I just purchased 300 more shares. If you have a minimum of 100 shares you qualify for VIP treatment on cruises.
Royal Caribbean took a nose dive and I just purchased 300 more shares. If you have a minimum of 100 shares you qualify for VIP treatment on cruises.
As an aside, you have some former Fed heads and Prez Tweeter calling for a rate cut and/or globalized/centralized rate cuts. Does anyone have a view on how that might affect the markets. Perhaps it could be used to treat any new positions as trades? I mean rates are already essentially zero. Companies don;t need a rate cut to issue debt and raise money. they can raise all the money they need now and more. The Fed is already controlling the overnite repo market so that does not need to be fixed. I just don;t see what a rate cut would do other than cause the algo's to be set in motion. And after an initial whatever, would it really change what is going on economically or with the Chinese Flu???
I've held (and add to) RTN, GD, LMT, NOC, and HII forever. I never touched Boeing because of its commercial side exposure. We had a discussion about this a year or so ago when several here assured us that the 787 Max problems would be fixed in a few weeks. ;)Yeah, I’ve had a little waiting on the sideline and jumped in Friday morning. Some nike, KO, cisco, Plug.
Thinking about some raytheon and boeing.
Speculators be speculating.Coronavirus strikes World Bank’s 2017 catastrophe bonds
Originally scheduled to mature in July this year, they are teetering on the edge of default.
The World Bank’s $320m 2017 catastrophe bond issue backing its Pandemic Emergency Financing Facility. The two tranches of PEF bonds were originally scheduled to mature in July of this year.
Thanks to 2019 nCoV, they are teetering on the edge of default. The PEF bonds were originally conceived as a sort of public-private partnership to get insurance investors to assume some of the risk of the Ebola epidemic. The idea was that if Ebola turned into a pandemic, ie spread from the Democratic Republic of Congo to neighbouring countries, the bonds would be “triggered” and pay their principal value into the World Bank’s PEF account.
To accomplish this public policy objective required considerable ghoulish ingenuity and more than 300 pages of description.
The event triggers were calculated on a complex formula based on deaths in the country of origin, a smaller number of deaths in neighbouring countries, and a relatively rapid increase in infection and mortality. Interest charges were assumed by rich-country donors including Germany and Japan.
The riskier bonds pay 11.5 per cent over Libor, since they required only 250 deaths to reach the trigger. Not bad, considering the “expected loss” for the tranche was only 7.74 per cent. The less risky tranche required 2,500 deaths, so only paid 6.9 per cent over Libor, compared with an expected loss of 3.57 per cent.
The bonds were reviled by the NGO world as a grossly overpriced giveaway to speculators.
Olga Jonas, a researcher at the Harvard School of Public Health and a former macroeconomist with the World Bank, describes the PEF bonds as “a gamble with taxpayers’ money” at “terrible odds”.
The investors seemed to agree, and piled on to the bid side. The issue ballooned from $75m for the less risky notes to $225m, and from $25m for the riskier notes to $95m.
Investors not only got the premium yields, but ESG street cred. The World Bank team got handshakes all round and started on plans for follow-up issues, perhaps with simpler documentation and lower coupons.
There were doubters, though, on the insurance world buy side. As one London underwriter comments: “They only needed 20 bodies on the other side of the Congo border to get to the trigger. What if someone loaded up a truck and dumped those in Rwanda?”
Nobody expected coronavirus to come along.
Even though China and most of its neighbours are not eligible for PEF payouts, the 2019 nCoV deaths count when the PEF bond triggers are calculated. Pay-off on the risky tranche of the July maturity looks increasingly uncertain.
The World Bank’s “gamble” on a pandemic may not have been so “terrible” after all. New pandemic bond issues would probably require even more lavish terms, assuming that would be politically possible.
Insurance people, though, are remarkably chipper about the future of pandemic deals. After all, as that London underwriter says: “Nothing is uninsurable; you just need more data. And life risk gives you more data than earthquakes.”
The real problem with underwriting pandemic risk, he thinks, is that it tends to be correlated with financial markets. “You don’t get the diversification offered by hurricanes and quakes.”
Consider the accelerating toll from nCoV as the risk-off signal you have been waiting for.
On the other side of the coronavirus trade:
Speculators be speculating.
Good advice but sometimes the market gives you a gift and that time appears to be now. No doubt everything will be back in a few months. The trick is timing the low. Also, I suppose, if it lasts long enough some cruise line, airline, etc. might not be able to weather the storm. So some caution is advisable.Good luck trying to outsmart this market beyond longer duration treasurys. Fear, speculation and greed are running amok, as usual during periods of high uncertainty like this.
Stay true to your investment goals, beginning and ending with TIME HORIZON. And if you’re going to pour money into stocks, choose high-quality, cash-rich companies that pay a reasonable dividend.
With the Fed’s commitment, CDs are dead for the foreseeable future. Investors are looking for income AND growth.
Good advice but sometimes the market gives you a gift and that time appears to be now. No doubt everything will be back in a few months. The trick is timing the low. Also, I suppose, if it lasts long enough some cruise line, airline, etc. might not be able to weather the storm. So some caution is advisable.
The impact is bad and China still hasn’t opened. This may do them more harm than they realize. It’s hurting us pretty good too.Maybe we are nearing a market bottom. Maybe we aren’t. It’s impossible to know the full extent of the damage across the globe due to supply chain disruptions, factory slowdowns, reduced consumer activity out of avoiding human contact, and probably three or four other factors. Economic data isn’t realtime; it’s generally with an eight- to 12-week delay. I think we’re only scratching the surface of our understanding of how deep the impact.
How do you price these things in to the market with that much unknown circulating about? You can’t.
China accounted for 4% of global GDP during the SARS epidemic in 2003. That figure is over 16% at present. Their economy was ripping at 10% in 2003. It’s now 6% and vulnerable from a number of angles, supply and demand. What happens when we determine they’re in a deep recession? May not happen, but I’m not betting on that, not yet.
Scott Minerd, one of the sharper minds in my industry, thinks we could see another 15% market downside. Wouldn’t surprise me. As new data comes in, the market will be repriced, and selling will come in waves. I’ve been through three recessions managing money. It’s an ugly, sloppy, at times unnerving process. That it is all linked to a virus that is very stealthy until it’s too late just adds to the uncertainty.
The market presents better value now than it did on Valentines Day, but that’s not to suggest introducing new cash now won’t end up being an exercise in catching a falling machete. I certainly wouldn’t do it with money that may need to be deployed for living expenses in the next few years. If it doesn’t, give it a shot with quality companies. But beware.
The impact is bad and China still hasn’t opened. This may do them more harm than they realize. It’s hurting us pretty good too.
Again it's all for the better as long as people don't go coo coo ballistic and vote Trump out of the office. Even talking with several Liberals I know they think this will all be behind us in a matter of 1-3 months.....If DT is still in office the "fallout" from this and subsequent changes will push the SM over 35K in 2 years....we will see full repatriation put back in place which is what fueled the 2017-2020 surge in the economy...lower 50% wage earners will see the bulk of wage growth again and the economy will explode....The impact is bad and China still hasn’t opened. This may do them more harm than they realize. It’s hurting us pretty good too.
Well if people don’t have right expectations they are likely to blame Trump. I don’t want to see that happen.Again it's all for the better as long as people don't go coo coo ballistic and vote Trump out of the office. Even talking with several Liberals I know they think this will all be behind us in a matter of 1-3 months.....If DT is still in office the "fallout" from this and subsequent changes will push the SM over 35K in 2 years....we will see full repatriation put back in place which is what fueled the 2017-2020 surge in the economy...lower 50% wage earners will see the bulk of wage growth again and the economy will explode....