1) Last week was obviously a huge rotation towards reopening & travel names on the Pfizer news.

Reopening and travel baskets were up +12%ish vs. Megacap Tech, Software and Stay at Home baskets down -2 to -6%. Insane moves in the Momentum factor.

Moderna news likely next week.
2) Curious to see how the market trades on the Moderna readout and likely Regeneron approval given Covid third wave, increasing lockdowns and credit card data rolling over hard.

Setup and positioning are quite different now vs. going into the Pfizer news.
3) Tech and WFH names were strong the day of the election and were especially strong the Wednesday immediately after Biden won.
4) These dynamics began to shift on the Thursday after the election (11/5), but the market was still offsides for Pfizer’s vaccine news.

As indicated by some highly skeptical quote tweets of the below tweet. 😀
5) As an aside: While I try to appreciate all of my detractors here on FinTwit equally, I do have some particular favorites.

Happy to have some *very* reliable quote/sub tweeting detractors who are genuinely funny. More GIFs and JPEGs pls.
6) Back on topic, people are *slightly* more on sides for an inevitable reopening after last week, but still a lot of skepticism over the Pfizer vaccine around temperature, production, logistics.
7) All these concerns are misplaced.

There is going to be tidal wave of positive news on various vaccines that are easier to distribute over the next few weeks and months.
8) Therapeutic approvals even more important in near term. Lilly data is impressive and Regeneron will likely be better.

The statistics below show that when given at the time of Covid diagnosis, the Lilly combo cuts risk of hospitalization amongst all patients from 5.9% to 0.9%.
9) Improvement is more dramatic in high risk (age or BMI) patients.

Eliminating the fear of death via therapeutics like this should be transformational for consumer behavior.
10) And I suspect most companies have been in risk production of vaccines and therapeutics for months now so supply of all of them likely surprises to the upside.
11) So lots to be optimistic about on vaccines and therapeutics, but they are 4-8 weeks out best case.

In the interim we have an exponential curve to new Covid cases *before* Thanksgiving likely makes it worse and the economy is rolling over per credit card data.
12) Net, net the reaction to the Moderna news whenever it comes will be telling.

Reopening and travel names are more expensive than pre-Pfizer and positioning is *slightly* more on sides for positive news.

Anyways, curious to see how the market trades on Moderna.

Feels tricky.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Gavin Baker

Gavin Baker Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @GavinSBaker

22 Aug
1) Ken Grant was the head of risk at Tudor and SAC.

The analogy he made in his book “Trading Risk” between Julius Caesar and Augustus always stuck with me.

Here are his “10 Commandments”

genriskadvisors.com/risk-philosoph…
2) “No matter what your market orientation, you are likely constrained, in gravity-like fashion, by one unshakeable reality: there is a finite amount of money that you are able to lose and still remain in the game.”
3) Permanent loss of capital is the most significant risk, but there are many forms of risk and uncertainty when it comes to investing.

Volatility is a legitimate way to think about risk because LPs don’t always control when they have to withdraw capital.
Read 8 tweets
2 Jun
1) Instinct is that risk/reward on the market is deteriorating rapidly, but thought I would highlight parts of the bull case that had struck me recently.

Sentiment and positioning are overwhelmingly bearish. Chart via the superb GS macro/hedge fund specialist team.
2) Valuation for the broader market remains attractive, especially when comparing dividend yield to interest rates and suspect we have seen most of the dividend cuts. Chart via ERP. Goldstein is the 🐐 when it comes to strategists.
3) Liquidity is an overwhelming tailwind. Would ordinarily dismiss “price to liquidity” as prima facie absurd but Darda was one of the few who was bearish going into 2008-2009 and then got bullish towards the bottom. And liquidity always paramount - see Druckenmiller comments.
Read 6 tweets
30 Apr
1) "You want to cheat the laws of physics, you don't want to confront them." - Jensen Huang

Great interview for anyone interested in semiconductors and datacenter architecture.

nextplatform.com/2020/04/27/nvi…
2) Vastly more venture $ have gone into AI accelerators vs. SmartNICs which will help "cheat the laws of physics" by putting more processing and intelligence in the network.

Suspect SmartNICs will end up being a much better investment.
3) History of semiconductors suggests it is really hard to dethrone a dominant incumbent.

CPUs: ARM couldn't displace x86 in PC/Server, x86 couldn't displace ARM in handsets, AMD has never displaced Intel in x86.

Similar story in GPUs & basebands - same #1, same architecture.
Read 9 tweets
28 Apr
1) So far in the battle of the irresistible force of the largest stimulus ever vs. the immovable object of the sharpest economic slowdown in history, the irresistible force is *overwhelmingly* winning.
2) Market has been rallying on new cases declining, massive stimulus, cleaner positioning and the fact that large parts of the economy will begin reopening - rightly or wrongly - by Memorial Day along with the reality that many of the largest index components benefit from Covid.
3) The market is always anticipatory - and it ripped into the economy reopening vs. around the economy reopening

Even after 20 years, I am surprised by just how anticipatory the market is. I thought I was weeks early writing this vs. only days early.

medium.com/@gavin_baker/v…
Read 18 tweets
20 Apr
1) "It will not last. Because they are the knights of summer, and winter is coming." - Catelyn Stark

Lots of "Summer CEOs" in Silicon Valley.

We are beginning to see who can become a "Winter CEO."

wsj.com/articles/coron…
2) Many of these "Summer CEOs" have sold a lot of secondary, are posteconomic to varying degrees and seem to care about their reputations above all else.

As a result, it is hard for some of them to become "Winter CEOs" and make the difficult decisions necessary for survival.
3) Being decisive and making the difficult decision to cut expenses early means that the cuts don't need to be as deep.

This puts the company in a much stronger position for the eventual recovery vs. those companies who wait to cut and as a result have to cut much deeper.
Read 4 tweets
16 Apr
1) Thought provoking chart from the best strategist:

When intra-sector valuation spreads are narrowing from really high levels - as they are now - estimate cuts haven't mattered. Dividend cuts have.

N is very low. Curious if the other instances came after a comparable rally.
2) My belief has been that we will not see a "true market price" until there are more accurate forward estimates.

Chart is a good reminder that there is no precedent for the current situation and it is good to keep an open mind given an exceptionally wide range of outcomes.
3) To the charts point, every single estimate cut so far has been bought aggressively. More than just a "transparency premium."

We will see if this persists post this rally. Really curious to see how the WFH names trade - what will be "good enough?"
Read 8 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Too expensive? Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal Become our Patreon

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!