Topley’s Top Ten – March 5, 2020

Author

Matt Topley
March 05, 2020

1.Number of 3% Moves Already in 2019.

2.7 Day Volatility Highest Since 2011

How volatile is the coronavirus-strickenstock market? After the worst week since 2008, the Dow is now on pace for itsbest week since 2011

3.Clear Picture of the Market’s Thoughts on Clean Energy vs. Fossil Fuels. 

Clean Energy ETF Right BelowTech in Leadership vs. Fossil Fuels Worst Performing Sector

InvestmentU-FossilFuels Are Out, Renewables Are In–By DavidFessler

4.The S&P Energy Index is Lower Than 15 Years Ago.

Howard Lindzon

5.Re-Visit Airline ETF

Airlines marked down againthis morning….Still well above 2015-2016 levels.

Airlines could lose up to $113 billion in passenger revenue due to coronavirus, IATA says

CNBC

6.Defensive Sectors Led Yesterday….Healthcare Big Biden Boost.

7.Regional Bank Index…10 Year Breaks 1% Not Good For Net Interest Margins

KRE-Regional Bank ETF—Holding Above 2019 Lows

8.Better Off Financially Americans Hits High from 1999

6 in 10 Americans say they’re better off financially than theywere a year ago. This is an all-time high in the poll and at levels we last sawin 1999 during the tech boom.  Worries about the economy are also atall-time lows.

American Living StandardsHave Never Been Better-CullenRoche – 02/10/2020

9.Who Sells When the Market Falls?

Posted February 27, 2020 by Michael Batnick

There is this commonly held belief that mom and popinvestors panic when the market is going down. Turns out this might not be thecase after all.

Jason Zweig did some excellent debunkingyesterday on this topic in the Wall StreetJournal:

“Institutions sell more thanindividuals when there is a large stock-market drop,” finance professorsPatrick Dennis and Deon Strickland found in a 2002 study. They also showed thatthe more widely a stock is held by big investors, the greater its trading volumeduring sharp market drops.

In order to find out how investors behave, he turned to datafrom the epicenter of retail, Vanguard.

A survey of more than 16,000individual investors by Vanguard Group, the giant asset manager, shows howdrastically their attitudes differ from those of big institutions. Vanguard hasbeen repeating this survey every two months since early 2017. The resultssuggest that individual investors have become a major force formoderation in the financial markets.

How about them apples!

But we know better than to trustsurveys, and luckily, there is some fresh data to back up this claim.

Eric Balchunas tweeted “$VOO took in over$1b, while Vanguard as a whole took in over $3b, during the worst two-daydecline in the market since 2008, with 57 of their ETFs have taking in cash inpast week. Even by Vanguard standards, that’s some impressive Navy Seals-leveldiscipline.”

It’s unlikely that mom and pop are going to crash themarket, if anything, they might be helping to prevent that from happening.

9.Study: A Session In The Sauna Works Out The Heart Just As Much As Exercise

HALLE, Germany— Many fitness centers offer saunas to their clients, and they’re a greatway to get an extra shvitz after a workout. It turns out that a sauna sessionis also a great way to get the heart pumping a little extra, too, according tonew research.

A study conducted byresearchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in collaboration withresearchers at the Medical Center Berlin shows that a short sauna sessioncauses an increase in heart rate and blood pressure that’s comparable to theincrease seen from a brief, moderate intensity workout.

It’s long been assumedthat a sauna session causes a steady decrease inblood pressure, but researchers say their work proves otherwise. “It wasthought that the heat dilates the blood vessels and that this lowers the bloodpressure”, says Dr Sascha Ketelhut, lead author of the study and a sportsscientist at Martin Luther University, in a university release.

For the study,researchers measured the heart rate and blood pressure of 19 participantsduring a 25-minute sauna session and during a 30-minute period after thesession. The next day participants completed a short workout on an exercise bike whiletheir heart rate and blood pressure were measured.

A baseline heart rateand blood pressure reading were taken before the sauna session began. At thestart of the sauna session the heart rate and blood pressure of participantsrose significantly. During the 30-minute period after the session, they bothdropped to values significantly lower than their baseline values.

This shows that a saunasession can be quite demanding on the cardiovascular system. This effect iseven more pronounced when the heart rate and blood pressure readings from thesauna session are compared with the readings from the exercise session.

“Comparing the twoconditions, the participants’ blood pressure andheart rate reached the same levels during the sauna session as they did with aload of about 100 watts during the exercise test”, says Ketelhut.

The findings of this studyfall in line with the results of previous studies that show that long-termsauna use has a positive effect on one’s heart health.

Ketelhut notes thateven though a sauna session places a physical strain on the body similar tosports activities, the sweating of a sauna session does not contribute tohealthy weight loss. “The effect is too low as there is no muscle activity.Although we lose weight in the sauna, but these are just the fluids that wesweat out. One should rehydrate after a sauna session, though”, concludesKetelhut.

The study is published in ComplementaryTherapies in Medicine.

10.Why Your Doctor Is Not Panicking About Novel Coronavirus

COVID-19is new, but there is a lot we already know.

Each daymore cases of novel coronavirus, COVID-19, are reported in the U.S., and eachday we feel more anxious. With the volume of information and theconfusion about what’s true, it’s easy to panic. But your doctor isn’tpanicking, and you don’t need to, either.

We knowmore about COVID-19 than you think.

The waythis epidemic is being reported highlights a sense of the unknown, and theunknown makes us anxious. It’s hard to stay calm when the director of the WHOis saying, “This is a unique virus, with unique features. This virus is notinfluenza. We are in uncharted territory.”

He’sright about that, and it’s alarming that the mortality statistics arelooking higher than we initially hoped. 

Theexecutive director of WHO’s health emergencies program, Dr. Mike Ryan, has said, “Here we have adisease for which we have no vaccine, no treatment, we don’t fully understandtransmission, we don’t fully understand case mortality, but what we have beengenuinely heartened by is that unlike influenza, where countries have foughtback, where they’ve put in place strong measures, we’ve remarkably seen thatthe virus is suppressed.”

So whilewe have hope that we can suppress the virus, there is still a lot we don’tknow. But there is also a lot we do know. COVID-19 is a new virus in awell-known class of viruses. The coronaviruses are cold viruses. I’ve treatedcountless patients with coronaviruses over the years. In fact, we’ve been ableto test for them on our respiratory panels for the entirety of my career.

We knowhow cold viruses work: They cause runny noses, sneezing, cough, and fever, andmake us feel tired and achy. For almost all of us, they run their coursewithout medication. And in the vulnerable, they can trigger amore severe illness like asthma or pneumonia.

Yes, this virusis different and worse than other coronaviruses, but it still looks veryfamiliar. We know more about it than we don’t know.

Doctorsknow what to do.

Doctorsknow what to do with respiratory viruses. As a pediatrician, I take care ofpatients with hundreds of different viruses that behave similarly to this one.We take care of the kids at home and see them if the fever is prolonged, ifthey get dehydrated, or if they develop breathing difficulty. Then we treatthose problems and support the child until they get better.

You knowwhat to do.

You knowwhat to do to avoid getting a cold: Wash your hands with soap and water for 20seconds. Or rub vigorously with hand sanitizer when soap and water are notavailable. Cough into your elbow with a nice seal against your face. Don’ttouch your face or your eyes and spread germs you may have touched with yourhands.

You knowhow to take care of yourself when you have a cold: Drink lots of fluids and getsome rest. Be kind to people who have medical problems. Just like if you haveinfluenza, stay home and don’t spread it around.

And youknow when to call your doctor. Based on your own health history, call yourdoctor’s office with concerns.

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The kidsare okay.

Forparents, it’s crucial to know that kids are doing very well in this epidemic.In general, COVID-19 has been a mild illness in children.In other words, it’s a cold. Cases of more severe disease in children with thisvirus appear to be very rare based on the information we have now. The mainissue is the way they could spread it to other people who are at higher risk.As always, call your child’s doctor if you are concerned that you are seeingserious symptoms in your child.

They areworking on a vaccine.

Smartpeople are working on a vaccine for COVID-19. According to the CEO of Regeneron, their vaccinewill likely be in testing by this summer.

Quarantinesare slowing it down.

Ourhealth departments and the CDC are on it. As we test and isolate patients withCOVID-19, so far community spread has been kept to a slow rate. This isimportant because it keeps our hospitals ready to meet the needs of those whodo become very ill.

Employersand schools are considering their plans if an outbreak develops in their area.Many are looking at work-at-home and learn-at-home options. The healthdepartments in each state are actively at work.

It’sscary to think that an invisible enemy is out there to make you sick. But yourdoctor is not panicking, and you don’t need to, either.