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@mariner4life said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@canefan also, were they technically an empire? It was a collection of loosely allied states, and they seem to take turns being in charge depending on who was the strongest at the time. Bunch of different king and shit. And seemed to spend half the time butchering each other.
Hahaha, yeah, further evidence of their laziness, they couldn't even be bothered to have a proper empire like Rome eventually would.
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@Toddy said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Catogrande Work lazy I get, but they're pretty social people (kiss for greetings etc). They love to go to a cafe (instead of working) during the day and talk bullsh*t. Well, the men do. How are they not dying in droves?
Yep, there's some very puzzling things about this virus in the differing impacts on countries.
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@Tim said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Thanks, Tim, Torygraph here in UK yesterday reported that group in the first batch weren't representative and many had replied to FB ad because they felt unwell?
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@Rapido said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@antipodean said in Coronavirus - Overall:
I'm unsure as to the timing in New Zealand, but in Australia the panic was characterised by two "events". The Italy count and the Ruby Princess.
Earlier today I was reading this: Investigating the impact of influenza on excess mortality in all ages in Italy during recent seasons (2013/14–2016/17 seasons) in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. Published August last year.
In recent years, Italy has been registering peaks in death rates, particularly among the elderly during the winter season.
We estimated excess deaths of 7,027, 20,259, 15,801 and 24,981 attributable to influenza epidemics in the 2013/14, 2014/15, 2015/16 and 2016/17, respectively, using the Goldstein index. The average annual mortality excess rate per 100,000 ranged from 11.6 to 41.2 with most of the influenza-associated deaths per year registered among the elderly.
Over 68,000 deaths were attributable to influenza epidemics in the study period. The observed excess of deaths is not completely unexpected, given the high number of fragile very old subjects living in Italy.
That's interesting for a baseline.
But, how much of Italy has Covid19 impacted yet though? Italy don't release stats by state/region, so the JHU stats don't break down by region for Italy, so there's been no reporting of it yet that I have seen. Has the country gone into lockdown before it spread much from Lombardy and the rest of the Po Valley? (Although Po Valley acccounts for half of Italy's population)
Have found this:
The top 4 are all Po Valley. Rome (Lazio) and Naples (Campania) have barely been effected yet.
Interesting graph, thanks. Most countries have much higher incidence in localities which contain decent sized cities.
One interesting thing, though, about Italy, is that people, at least in the north, tend to live more in 200k pop towns than big cities: hence Amazon has found it tricky to make its model work there.
Arguing against myself!
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@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
And destroy capital values in the meantime.
One man's debt is another man's capital asset..
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
And destroy capital values in the meantime.
One man's debt is another man's capital asset..
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
And destroy capital values in the meantime.
One man's debt is another man's capital asset..
Yep, but rising interest rates attack capital values of bonds and make corporate and govvy debt more expensive to service. With interest rates where they are the longer term outlook for the safe haven of government and IG bonds is not particularly good. In the UK we’ve basically had a 40 year bull market in bonds as rates have reduced. Sooner or later that easy ride will turn to a painful ride and I’m not sure we’re placed to deal with it.
And it sort of fucks over Modern Portfolio Theory which has been the cornerstone of investment professionals since the 1950’s and is much favoured by the compliance and regulatory regimes which dictate risk management.
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@Catogrande 2% interest is an attack on capital value now?
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@Tim said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Catogrande 2% interest is an attack on capital value now?
Sure. On a 10 year bond a 2% increase in rates is about a 20% drop in capital values. Broad brush view but close enough.
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@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Yep, but rising interest rates attack capital values of bonds and make corporate and govvy debt more expensive to service. With interest rates where they are the longer term outlook for the safe haven of government and IG bonds is not particularly good. In the UK we’ve basically had a 40 year bull market in bonds as rates have reduced. Sooner or later that easy ride will turn to a painful ride and I’m not sure we’re placed to deal with it.
It's been a house of cards for some time. Debt servicing costs have been growing but seem cheap which poss. breeds complacency. It's less than 15 years ago BoE interest rates were 6% and that was considered low. What happens when the biubble bursts? Imagine the impact if mortgage & personal finance rates doubled to 6%....
And it sort of fucks over Modern Portfolio Theory which has been the cornerstone of investment professionals since the 1950’s and is much favoured by the compliance and regulatory regimes which dictate risk management.
My pension portfolio manager works on a basis of 50% loss of capital. Little in gilts, plenty in cash.
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@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Tim said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Catogrande 2% interest is an attack on capital value now?
Sure. On a 10 year bond a 2% increase in rates is about a 20% drop in capital values. Broad brush view but close enough.
On 30 year gilt 2% yield increase might be 36% capital hit. Quite the riskless investment!
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Yep, but rising interest rates attack capital values of bonds and make corporate and govvy debt more expensive to service. With interest rates where they are the longer term outlook for the safe haven of government and IG bonds is not particularly good. In the UK we’ve basically had a 40 year bull market in bonds as rates have reduced. Sooner or later that easy ride will turn to a painful ride and I’m not sure we’re placed to deal with it.
It's been a house of cards for some time. Debt servicing costs have been growing but seem cheap which poss. breeds complacency. It's less than 15 years ago BoE interest rates were 6% and that was considered low. What happens when the biubble bursts? Imagine the impact if mortgage & personal finance rates doubled to 6%....
And it sort of fucks over Modern Portfolio Theory which has been the cornerstone of investment professionals since the 1950’s and is much favoured by the compliance and regulatory regimes which dictate risk management.
My pension portfolio manager works on a basis of 50% loss of capital. Little in gilts, plenty in cash.
And if UK governemt increases borrowing by £200 bn, the extra 2% is £4 bn a year extra in interest.
Hence the absurdity of regulators pushing corporate pension funds to purchase ever more of the gilt-edged suckers.
Cash and equities is enough for most pension funds.
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@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@pakman said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Local Central Banks
Local Banks
Local Insurance companies and Pension/superannuation funds
Overseas Central banks
Other InvestorsIn the UK and Europe, and I think US, the Regulators twist the arms up the back of Cats 2 and 3 to be up to their gills in local government bonds, even though in Cat 3 case the returns are derisory for their beneficiaries. And, as the article intimates, Cat 1 is stepping up massively to buy. In UK that is both for new issues and secondary stock.
Gilts are becoming less used in UK pension funds as funds are switched out of traditional corporate pension schemes and into self-invested plans. The returns just don't outweigh the risk of other fixed-income instruments.
The current factors for converting defined benefit pensions into cash via a SIPP transfer are insanely good just now.
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@Victor-Meldrew Yeah we’ve been in interesting times since 2008 alright. Consider that up until recently you’d have had investment professionals with ten years experience that had never seen a rate rise or experienced harmful inflation. House of cards is apt. The only saving grace is that most Governments are aware of the precariousness and also that there is no benchmark response to where we are. FFS it’s been nearly 12 years since the GFC and we still don’t have an unwinding plan. Now the bat eating Chinese have fucked us over even further.
On a separate note, if your portfolio is cash heavy it’s probably a good place to be, though it’s difficult to be ballsy when adding risk back in to the portfolio. The last week or two will have caught out those with cash a bit. Or has it? 64k question.
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@pakman said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Victor-Meldrew said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
Yep, but rising interest rates attack capital values of bonds and make corporate and govvy debt more expensive to service. With interest rates where they are the longer term outlook for the safe haven of government and IG bonds is not particularly good. In the UK we’ve basically had a 40 year bull market in bonds as rates have reduced. Sooner or later that easy ride will turn to a painful ride and I’m not sure we’re placed to deal with it.
It's been a house of cards for some time. Debt servicing costs have been growing but seem cheap which poss. breeds complacency. It's less than 15 years ago BoE interest rates were 6% and that was considered low. What happens when the biubble bursts? Imagine the impact if mortgage & personal finance rates doubled to 6%....
And it sort of fucks over Modern Portfolio Theory which has been the cornerstone of investment professionals since the 1950’s and is much favoured by the compliance and regulatory regimes which dictate risk management.
My pension portfolio manager works on a basis of 50% loss of capital. Little in gilts, plenty in cash.
And if UK governemt increases borrowing by £200 bn, the extra 2% is £4 bn a year extra in interest.
Hence the absurdity of regulators pushing corporate pension funds to purchase ever more of the gilt-edged suckers.
Cash and equities is enough for most pension funds.
Different requirements for DB and DC pensions. The former is about amassing gains, the latter is about matching known liabilities. But broadly agree, it’s difficult to see value there.
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@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Victor-Meldrew Yeah we’ve been in interesting times since 2008 alright. Consider that up until recently you’d have had investment professionals with ten years experience that had never seen a rate rise or experienced harmful inflation. House of cards is apt. The only saving grace is that most Governments are aware of the precariousness and also that there is no benchmark response to where we are. FFS it’s been nearly 12 years since the GFC and we still don’t have an unwinding plan. Now the bat eating Chinese have fucked us over even further.
On a separate note, if your portfolio is cash heavy it’s probably a good place to be, though it’s difficult to be ballsy when adding risk back in to the portfolio. The last week or two will have caught out those with cash a bit. Or has it? 64k question.
I'm trying to put some cash in each week. Harder when sudden burst of euphoria, but the norm is that there's a second dip before things really start up in earnest.
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@pakman said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Catogrande said in Coronavirus - Overall:
@Victor-Meldrew Yeah we’ve been in interesting times since 2008 alright. Consider that up until recently you’d have had investment professionals with ten years experience that had never seen a rate rise or experienced harmful inflation. House of cards is apt. The only saving grace is that most Governments are aware of the precariousness and also that there is no benchmark response to where we are. FFS it’s been nearly 12 years since the GFC and we still don’t have an unwinding plan. Now the bat eating Chinese have fucked us over even further.
On a separate note, if your portfolio is cash heavy it’s probably a good place to be, though it’s difficult to be ballsy when adding risk back in to the portfolio. The last week or two will have caught out those with cash a bit. Or has it? 64k question.
I'm trying to put some cash in each week. Harder when sudden burst of euphoria, but the norm is that there's a second dip before things really start up in earnest.
I would be very wary of applying previous experience to today’s issues. What we are facing is very different to anything in living memory. Not saying it will all be doom and gloom, just that the old rules may well not apply. However regular contributions are a good way of allowing the volatility to work in your favour.
Coronavirus - Overall