29-March-2020:  In this first link, some Australian quant guys who are great at numbers and modelling attempt to use their skills to predict when COVID-19 infections are likely to peak in both the US and Australia (possible as soon as early to mid-April they say):

Optimism among forecasts of the COVID-19 peak

This detailed analysis of infections, deaths, drugs and vaccines includes an optimistic scenario: perhaps US and Australian infection numbers will peak in early to mid-April with a decline after.

In the next article, the author describes the perils and pitfalls of the current "Epidemic of Armchair Epidemiology" (i.e. people who are very good at one thing extrapolating their skills into other areas in which they are not experts):

Stop the epidemic of armchair epidemiology.

I'd love the first group to be right - a peak in early to mid-April sounds great, as do the possible treatment combinations they describe, but it's also best to listen to people with expertise in epidemiology rather than to trust in people who happen to be really good with both numbers and computers but lack any experience or demonstrated skill in epidemiology.  For now, the expert advice is that our best defence includes:  staying at home as much as possible, social distancing when out, and washing our hands thoroughly with soap regularly - or using alcohol-based hand sanitiser when out.  The problem is that any analysis that undermines that message (that might result in people ignoring that message or not taking it as seriously as they might otherwise) is dangerous and will probably result in a higher death toll.  My approach will be to listen and follow the expert advice, while hoping that the more positive forecasts of the armchair epidemiologists prove to be correct.

[The links are in bold type above - click on them to read the full articles]

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/deadly-viruses-are-no-match-for-plain-old-soap-heres-the-science-behind-it-2020-03-08

That explains exactly why soap and water will kill this virus even more effectively than alcohol-based hand sanitiser does - because it's a self-assembled nanoparticle in which the weakest link is the lipid (fatty) bilayer, and soap dissolves the fat membrane, and the virus falls apart like a house of cards and “dies,” or rather, it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive.  The water washes it off the skin, but it won't work without the soap, and it has to be soap, not those liquid handwashes that are soap-free.  Very interesting.  It also explains what a coronavirus is made of, and how it replicates, what it sticks to best, and what types of surfaces it has trouble surviving on.  It loves human skin, as well as steel, porcelain and Teflon!

Hi All

I am going to post something very similar to what I have written in one of the MF forums so I apologies if anyone has read it before.

Im quite sure you will have been avidly consuming the financial and Covid-19 news of late

However, I would like to raise the prospect of a crash in the markets.

I have included a link to the CAPE/Shiller for the last ~150 years

The CAPE vs interest rates graph is perhaps even scarier

If we identify the two occasions in history that the Index is greater than 30 (indicating wildly overpriced stockmarkets) and then had a correction of 10%, the resulting losses for holders hoping to ride it out by picking the best companies were still spectacular. The first was Black Tuesday heralding the great depression. The second was the Dotcom Bust in 2000. Well, we have just hit the third occasion and I am of the firm opinion that we are probably heading for something very similar. Holding no companies is going to be better than holding good companies. Eveyone says we can "never time the market" but I think we can, but only very rarely: like, twice in the last 150 years. Or rather make that 3 times now.

Add into that the fact that the world is indebted to a degree never seen before (national, corporate and personal), there is no gunpowder left (interest rates are at rock bottom already) and the lunatics are running the asylum (Nationalist populist leaders are everwhere, I promised not to bring up Trump...Doh!) then it really wouldn’t take much to push the whole thing over.

Covid-19 is ideally suited to bring about the perfect storm

• it has all the ingredients to cause sensationalist journalism, causing widespread panic
• brings out the worst policy responses in leaders (both from an epidemiological perspective but for the purposes of this discussion; economic)
• is already causing massive disruption to the most exposed industries (tourism, shipping, airlines and travel companies)
• interrupts the global supply chains and just-in-time delivery that companies have embraced so enthusiastically
• will hugely reduce consumption and productivity (fear, and government policies aiming to increase social distancing to slow down the spread of the virus - so-called flattening the curve) 
• but, importantly will cause repeated ongoing waves as one country after another succumbs (Northern hemisphere winter, then southern, then northern again before any vaccine will be ready); some far more spectacularly than others. This will crush any hope of a rapid economic recovery and introduce investor despair
• plus the bond markets agree with my thesis - they strongly point to the fact that "we are all doomed, doomed I tell you."

Morbid, but I strongly believe, accurate.

I sold everything and put it all into cash a couple of days ago. (Actually not quite, maybe 90%, I have bought BEAR, EVN and some more CI1, and retain much reduced holdings of PPH, XRO and APX) I haven’t quite dug a hole in the garden to put my gold in but that has more to the likelihood of our kelpie digging it up, than for it being a successful saving strategy.

So, this represents an asymmetric risk which I believe favours a complete sell off of liquid assets.

If I am wrong and we have a rapid V shaped recovery, then I might well be 20% worse off than the "hold quality" approach.

Compare this to the 60-70% capital loss if I am right. And then add the fact you wont have as much cash to pick up all those superb companies trading at ludicrously low valuations and so miss out on the subsequent appreciation.

I realise I am probably in a minority of one here, but I promised myself 15 years ago that if the above criteria were ever met I would have the courage of my convictions to act on them no matter what everyone else was doing. "but as long as the music is till playing, you've got to get up and dance". Well, not me, I'm off to the bar.

Best of luck with the upcoming gyrations, 

Winter is coming!