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Pandemic threat-level market indicators

Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

doe22, I don't think Florida1 was singling out your post. Florida1 just wanted to let recently registered members and guests know about FluTracker's policies regarding posts in the economic threads. :)
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

Oil spikes, pandemics biggest threat to growth: WEF

By Gilbert Le Gras

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Surging oil prices, a pandemic or extreme weather are more likely to spoil the world's best growth in a generation than snowballing economic imbalances, a World Economic Forum study group said on Wednesday.

Even lightly regulated hedge funds, another big worry often cited by policy makers and regulators, are less of a concern than they have been, a panel of more than 40 academics, business and government leaders found.

"Hedge funds were one of the top five risks and then drifted down and the focal points today are around oil price shocks and energy security being one, pandemics being another, climate change," said John Drzik, one of the organizers of the joint WEF-Marsh & McLennan Companies global risk consultation.

"A credit hedge fund collapse was not (seen as) one of the starting points of risks to the financial system," said Drzik, president of consultancy Mercer Oliver Wyman.

The latest hedge fund to get in trouble is Amaranth Advisors LLC. It once managed $9 billion but lost some $6 billion in the natural gas market earlier this month.

A source familiar with Amaranth's situation said on Wednesday that the hedge fund was increasingly unlikely to survive as an independent company.

Drzik said what could really have roiled markets last month would have been another hurricane at the same time, magnitude and location as 2005's Katrina which could easily put crude prices over $100 per barrel had it taken out refining capacity.

Experts also are concerned about government reactions in the event of a bird flu pandemic. So far 147 people have died worldwide of the H5N1 virus since 2003, according to the World Health Organization.

The risks are if people start hoarding vaccines rather than distributing them, if there's civil unrest and the perception or fear of spread in Western economies so people are afraid to go to work," Drzik said.

Accelerated climate change could be another trigger to a broader disruption to the global economy.

"There would be more political will to develop alternative fuels," Drzik added, while other policy makers may simply opt to ration or limit fossil fuel sales to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Under caps to fossil fuel sales, however, there is a risk oil producers could rush to dump crude on the market before those controls would be fully put in place, he said.
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

there do exist "mortality bonds" named "Vita I", "Vita II","Tartan".
These should be the best financial instruments to measure
the pandemic threat since their payment directly depends
on the change in mortality in USA and similar countries.

Can someone get actual quotes ?


http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cach...td"+presale&hl=de&gl=de&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8



see pages 18-21 here:
http://www.usinsurer.com/pdf/US_InsurerFALL06PDF.pdf


there seems to be a secondary market. Someone to mimic
a large institutional investor and call up to Swiss Re...

OK, I found the price of the "Tartan B" from Scottish Re now, it was
LIBOR+3%, for 3 years, total loss, when the cumulative mortality
over 2 years is 15% more than average. In 1918 it was 33%
above average.
So the investor gets 9% from Scottish Re for the risk to lose
100% in case of a 1918-like pandemic over 3 years.
It's a bit worse than that, so let's say :
the market estimates 7% probability that there is a pandemic
like 1918 or worse in the next 3 years.

And that was in April 2006, when panflu fear was at its top.



I calculate that the market estimated:

Vita I in Nov.2003 was 4% in 3 years
Vita II in April 2005 was 8% in 5 years
Tatan in April 2006 was 7% in 3 years

...for the probability of an excess mortality like 1918 or worse in USA
within that period.

(numbers adjusted by me so to be comparable, add some uncertainty)
(someone please check my calculation)






<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2800.1141" name=GENERATOR>http://www2.standardandpoors.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=sp/sp_article/ArticleTemplate&c=sp_article&cid=1069080460421&s=&ig=&b=2&dct=19
Vita I

http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:0qOngAuf2j0J:www2.standardandpoors.com/servlet/Satellite%3Fpagename%3Dsp/sp_article/ArticleTemplate%26c%3Dsp_article%26cid%3D1111443690509%26b%3D10%26r%3D1%26l%3DEN+%22vita+capital+ii+ltd%22+presale&hl=de&gl=de&ct=clnk&cd=1&ie=UTF-8
Vita II

http://www2.snl.com/irweblinkx/ShowFile.aspx?KeyFile=2289252
Tartan

http://www.usinsurer.com/pdf/US_InsurerFALL06PDF.pdf
mortality bonds

www.standardandpoors.com
http://www.milliman.com/


http://www.pensions-institute.org/conferences/8th_bowles/Lane.pdf
page 28 has a chart of Vita II Apr.2005-Apr 2006


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/05/15/cnaxa15.xml&menuId=242&sSheet=/money/2006/05/15/ixcity.html
Axa 2006



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Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

Could not find quotes for these bonds on yahoo or google. They are probably too illiquid, tightly held and be off the run - so no easily accessible public quotes may be available. There may be no public market at all.

Pity much purer than the bioflu punting stocks - many of which appear to be just indicators of risk appetite
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

Lane Financial seems to have second market quotes, but their
chart only showed 1 quote per 3 months.
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

Novavax (NVAX) was up over 7 % today on no news. BCRX was up over 2 %.
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

Novavax up ~ 7% today as well. Yesterday the announced they would release their results on Nov 14. Given that these companies like to have something to pump the price at any results it could be (a) people anticipating some goodish news in the results (b) something good will be announced and someone got wind? Look at Sinovac in the recent months.

Generally the larger companies are down. Pharma is being hit by the democrats success. The smaller bioflu are up.

Gold is down. generally quite a lot of noise from the democrats victory.
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

most bioflu stocks down today with the pharma stocks. Democrats pharma effect lives on. Day 2 the smaller stocks get it

GILEAD SCIENCES Down 2.78%
MEDIMMUNE INC Down 2.49%
BIOCRYST PHARM INC Down 4.59%
BAXTER INTL INC Down 1.37%
SINOVAC BIOTECH LTD Down 2.19%BIO
BIO RAD LABS CL A Down 2.61%
TEVA PHARM INDS AD Down 3.23%
BARR PHARMA INC Down 3.23%
AVI BIOPHARMA INC Down 4.90%
VIRAGEN INC Down 3.57%
PEREGRINE PHARMA INC Down 2.64%
NOVAVAX INC Down 3.29%
VICAL INC Down 1.99%

Did any bioflu go up?
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

Novavax (NVAX) is up 10 % today on no news. There is rumor of a buyout. If the buyer is someone like Gilead or GSK then that may be significant. In my very limited understanding, GSK and others can create vaccines but NVAX has the technology to mass produce them.
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

Could we be for another big pharma swallows biotech like id-biomedica?? and GSK last year (or chiron and novartis).
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

My limited understanding was that Solvay, Baxter, Crucell are playing in the get away from chicken eggs game (probably using a different method)
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

Sorry Doe, I don't follow the science and couldn't understand it if I did ! I thought that NVAX was the leader in getting away from the chicken egg thing but I guess others are doing it too. I only watch these stocks (and others) to hopefully get an idea of the pandemic's timetable. Were a couple of these stocks to show up as actively traded on CNBC's ticker, that would be my major clue. When the Indonesian situation looked ominous (late last year ?), NVAX and BCRX were actively traded.
OTOH, my financial prepping would involve shorting (or buying puts) on almost everything and buying only symbol GLD ...but we've rehashed that enough in the gold thread. :)
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

They are vehicles on government fear of pandemic being turned into orders for vax. However I suspect they may all plummet immediately before pandemia (nationalization threat or its too late). However they are the early indicator of fear. The other two legs are gold and airlines. When these plummet after a rise, gold rises (probably?) and airlines crash then that a big signal (but then again what do I know).
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

can someone please get the actual quotes for mortality bonds ?
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

I try to include the chart of the bird flu index here,
I hope it works :

URL]



it's a clear upward-trend since August, but it's parallel to the Biotech index,
though steeper, so it's not clear whether it is bird-flu related.
 
Re: Pandemic threat-level market indicators

:iagree: :iagree:
doe22 said:
They are vehicles on government fear of pandemic being turned into orders for vax. However I suspect they may all plummet immediately before pandemia (nationalization threat or its too late). However they are the early indicator of fear. The other two legs are gold and airlines. When these plummet after a rise, gold rises (probably?) and airlines crash then that a big signal (but then again what do I know).
Click to expand...
I agree completely. Please stay active and post what you observe.
 
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