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Macro Thoughts

We are moving from a World of Hyper Connectedness to a World of
Quarantine. A complete Quarantine is the only way to vaccine this
c21st World of ours
#Coronavirus "has started behaving a lot like the once-in-a-century
pathogen we've been worried about." - @BillGates
The Price of Crude Oil is perfectly correlated to the #COVID19 Sudden Stop

“Oil kindles extraordinary emotions and hopes, since oil is above all
a great temptation. It is the temptation of ease, wealth, strength,
fortune, power. It is a filthy, foul-smelling liquid that squirts
obligingly up into the air and falls back to earth as a rustling
shower of money.”― Ryszard Kapuściński, Shah of Shahs

At this point I would venture Gold is correlated to the #Coronavirus
which is set to turn parabolic and is already non linear and
exponential ~

Home Thoughts

FOR EZRA POUND
IL MIGLIOR FABBRO

  I. The Burial of the Dead

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm’ aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the arch-duke’s,
My cousin’s, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.


“You gave me hyacinths first a year ago;
“They called me the hyacinth girl.”
—Yet when we came back, late, from the Hyacinth garden,
Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not
Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither
Living nor dead, and I knew nothing,
Looking into the heart of light, the silence.
Oed’ und leer das Meer.

  Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante,
Had a bad cold, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest woman in Europe,
With a wicked pack of cards. Here, said she,
Is your card, the drowned Phoenician Sailor,
(Those are pearls that were his eyes. Look!)
Here is Belladonna, the Lady of the Rocks,
The lady of situations.
Here is the man with three staves, and here the Wheel,
And here is the one-eyed merchant, and this card,
Which is blank, is something he carries on his back,
Which I am forbidden to see. I do not find
The Hanged Man. Fear death by water.
I see crowds of people, walking round in a ring.
Thank you. If you see dear Mrs. Equitone,
Tell her I bring the horoscope myself:
One must be so careful these days.

  Unreal City,
Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,
A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,
I had not thought death had undone so many.
Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,
And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.
Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,
To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours
With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying: “Stetson!
“You who were with me in the ships at Mylae!
“That corpse you planted last year in your garden,
“Has it begun to sprout? Will it bloom this year?
“Or has the sudden frost disturbed its bed?
“Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men,
“Or with his nails he’ll dig it up again!
“You! hypocrite lecteur!—mon semblable,—mon frère!”


              II. A Game of Chess

The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Glowed on the marble, where the glass
Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
(Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
Reflecting light upon the table as
The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
From satin cases poured in rich profusion;
In vials of ivory and coloured glass
Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
Unguent, powdered, or liquid—troubled, confused
And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
That freshened from the window, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.
Huge sea-wood fed with copper
Burned green and orange, framed by the coloured stone,
In which sad light a carvéd dolphin swam.
Above the antique mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the sylvan scene
The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the walls; staring forms
Leaned out, leaning, hushing the room enclosed.
Footsteps shuffled on the stair.
Under the firelight, under the brush, her hair
Spread out in fiery points
Glowed into words, then would be savagely still.

  I think we are in rats’ alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.

  “What is that noise?”
                          The wind under the door.
“What is that noise now? What is the wind doing?”
                           Nothing again nothing.
                                                        “Do
“You know nothing? Do you see nothing? Do you remember
“Nothing?”

Political Reflections

Taiwan did not beat coronavirus because of Confucianism. Full stop.
They are doing well because their Vice President is an epidemiologist
with previous experience with SARS and they have a strong public
health sector with an emergency command centre.

Conclusions

Merkel is a Scientist. The Populist Hocus Pocus Magical Thinkers are
virucided by #COVID19

Everyone needs to stop thinking COVID19 numbers today are today’s
numbers. They’re not. They reflect: a) transmission between 12-18 days
ago, b) onset and course of illness 7-14 days ago, c) hospitalization
and testing, 7-1 days ago. Strictly: the present is the past.

The captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier with more than 100 sailors
infected with the coronavirus pleaded Monday with U.S. Navy officials
for resources to allow isolation of his entire crew and avoid possible
deaths in a situation he described as quickly deteriorating.

The normal defenses fail. It can't be bombed. Bank accounts can't be
frozen. Unbreakable morale. No supply chain. Lives off the land.
Infinite reinforcements. Fully decentralized.

COVID-19 deaths in the US have exceeded the number of China. It is
solely caused by US govt’s mishandling. Wuhan imposed a lockdown on
Jan. 23, sending a clear warning. The US only had 1 confirmed case
then and there was time. Trump administration has failed the American
people.

Most Authoritarian Leaders appear to believe in their own
invincibility and immortality @zittokabwe and this #COVID19 has a
karmic quality or as  @NYGovCuomo called it it is the Great Equalizer
I prefer Terminator cc  @Schwarzenegger

International Markets

Dow Jones suffers worst first quarter ever. Only 1 Dow member,
Microsoft, ended Q1 2020 in positive territory w/+0.01% while Boeing
plunged >50% YTD, while Chevron and Exxon sank around 40% after oil
suffered its worst quarterly beatdown on record.

Each superhost has 10, 20, 30 houses...each with a mortgage.
Avg price 500k
Avg downpayment 7% (35k)
this is a ticking time-bomb...a repeat of the 2008 fiasco.

We are moving from a World of Hyper Connectedness to a World of
Quarantine. A complete Quarantine is the only way to vaccine this
c21st World of ours #Coronavirus "has started behaving a lot like the
once-in-a-century pathogen we've been worried about." - @BillGates

Euro 1.0988
Dollar Index 99.231
Japan Yen 107.54
Swiss Franc 0.9622
Pound 1.2336
Aussie 0.6070
India Rupee 75.8075
South Korea Won 1229.66
Brazil Real 5.2053
Egypt Pound 15.7394
South Africa Rand 18.0108

Commodities

Emerging Markets

We are moving from a World of Hyper Connectedness to a World of Quarantine.

Frontier Markets

Sub Saharan Africa

5368 confirmed cases of #covid19
178 deaths
333 recovered patients.
47 affected countries
12 countries with at least 100 cases :

The First Issue is whether The #CoronaVirus will infect the Continent.
We Know that the #Coronavirus is exponential, non linear and
multiplicative.what exponential disease propagation looks like in the
real world.
Real world exponential growth looks like nothing, nothing, nothing ...
then cluster, cluster, cluster ... then BOOM!

He travelled by taxi; he shared taps and toilets with neighbours. He
went out for drinks and shared cigarettes. This is only beginning
people.

የሀዋሳ ኢንዱስትሪያል ፓርክ 14000 ሰራተኞቹን ከዛሬ ጀምሮ በጊዚያዊነት ከስራ ማሰናበቱን አስታወቀ። የፓርኩ
ዋና ስራ አስኪያጅ አቶ ፍጹም ከተማ ሰራተኞቹ ከስራ የተሰናበቱት በኮሮና ወረርሽኝ ምክንያት የገበያ ፍላጎት
በመቀዛቀዙ መሆኑን ገልጸዋል።


Hawassa Industrial Park announced that it has temporarily dismissed
14,000 employees from today. The director general of the park, Ato
City, said that the workers were laid off due to the decline in market
demand due to the Corona epidemic.

The Nigerian currency depreciated to its weakest level since February
2017 in the unofficial black market after the country’s central bank
cut supply to dealers.
The local unit traded at 415 naira per dollar according to
abokiFX.com, which collates rates from street-traders in Lagos. In the
official spot market, naira traded 386.51 per dollar as of 4:15pm in
Lagos, the highest it has traded in 24 years.
The central bank in Africa’s most populous country announced last week
that it was suspending foreign exchange sales to money changers until
further notice. A move it said was in line with curtailing the spread
of coronavirus in the country.
“The fact of central bank stopping sale of dollars to BDCs to contain
the spread of coronavirus caused some scarcity in the market,” chief
executive officer of Forward Marketing Communications bureau de
change, Abubakar Mohammed said by phone.
“People are buying dollars to keep, thinking when things become normal
they’ll gain,” he said.
“Bureau de Change account for 30% of foreign exchange transactions and
if supply is not coming from there, even people with dollars will
hoard,” Robert Omotunde, analyst at Afrinvest said by phone.
Leading Nigerian banks, such as Zenith Bank Plc and Guaranty Trust
have cut how much foreign currency customers can spend abroad due to
expected dollar shortage cause by the coronavirus pandemic and the
slump in the price of oil, the country’s main export. Renaissance
Capital expects other banks to follow.
“The foreign reserve is not at a comfortable level. if the major
source of accretion is now pressured, exchange rate will feel the pain
and the situation will worsen,” Omotunde said.

Nigeria’s oil revenue is cratering and there is $16bn of ”hot money”
parked in short term certificates which is all headed for the Exit as
we speak. A Currency Devaluation is now predicted and predictable.

This week Moody’s Investor Services downgraded Nigeria to negative and
we learnt that Foreign Investors are propping up the Naira to the tune
of NGN5.8 trillion ($16 billion) via short-term certificates.
Everyone knows how this story ends. When the music stops, everyone
will dash for the Exit and the currency will collapse just like its
collapsing in Lusaka as we speak.

Zambia has asked banks for proposals on reorganizing as much as $11.2
billion of foreign debt as its debt-service costs rise and metal
prices plunge, hurting its economy.
The country “intends to implement a liability management of its
external debt portfolio to lengthen maturity and enhance its capacity
to meet debt-service obligations,” the finance ministry said in a
request for proposals sent to lenders, seen by Bloomberg and verified
by two of the recipients.
The advisers’ mandate would include assisting the government in
negotiations with creditors, as well as “formulating restructuring
plans for loans” where creditors agree, according to the document.
Zambia’s currency is the world’s worst performer after Brazil’s this
year, and foreign-exchange reserves have fallen to a record low and
cover less than two months of imports.
Its $3 billion of Eurobonds have been trading at distressed levels,
with yields on notes due 2022 rising above 50%. The bonds extended
losses Tuesday.
The request for proposals is part of Zambia’s plan to put in place
measures to ensure debt sustainability and deal with liabilities that
will become due in the medium term, Finance Ministry Spokesman
Chileshe Kandeta said in an emailed response to questions.
The document was sent to lenders including Barclays Plc, Citigroup
Inc., Deutsche Bank AG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The ministry also
sent it to Greylock Capital Management LLC, an investor in
emerging-market distressed debt.
“The government has no intention of unilaterally restructuring its
debt without consulting creditors,” Kandeta said. “The government will
respect agreements and use market-based instruments where applicable.”
Yields on Zambia’s $750 million of 2022 Eurobonds climbed 3.6
percentage points to 51.96% on Tuesday, while rates on notes due 2024
and 2027 also jumped.
The kwacha currency weakened as much as 1.7% to 18.2960 per dollar,
the weakest level on record.
Any restructuring plan will include debt held by multilateral and
bilateral lenders, commercial banks, capital-market investors
export-credit organizations and others, the document said.
Zambia’s foreign debt amounted to $11.2 billion at the end of 2019.
The country has been seeking support from the International Monetary
Fund since at least 2014, and Finance Minister Bwalya Ng’andu
reiterated his nation’s intentions last month.
“They were very clear that one of the things they want to see before
we can get down to a program is we exhibit debt sustainability,” he
had said of a meeting with fund staff.
“I think what they were looking for was some indication from us
beginning to take measures that point to the right direction.”
Zambia also plans to apply for emergency financing from lenders such
as the IMF to help respond to the coronavirus pandemic, Ng’andu said
March 27.
The selected advisers will “review the entire debt-loan portfolio to
identify loans that are plausible for liability management,” according
to the request for proposals.
They will also “formulate restructuring plans for loans where
liability management terms have been agreed to by creditors,” and help
arrange financing, it said.
Zambia debuted in the Eurobond market in 2012, when low interest rates
in the wake of the global recession and the ensuing hunt for yield
among investors meant it could borrow more cheaply than Spain at the
time. Two other Eurobond sales followed in 2014 and 2015.
It’s also contracted billions of dollars in loans for infrastructure
projects from lenders including Export-Import Bank of China,
Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and Saudi Fund for
Development.

Kenya