Market comment 2022

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One of the biggest failures during the Covid-19 pandemic is our slow response in diagnosing and treating long Covid. As many as 100 million people worldwide already suffer from long Covid. That staggering number will eventually be much higher, if we take into account that diagnoses are still inadequate, and that we still do not know what the impact of Omicron and future variants will be.

 Could microclots help explain the mystery of long Covid? | Resia Pretorius | The Guardian

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@yaneerbaryam
New York City

Hospitalizations per day from 40 to 1000, i.e. 25X in the past 3 weeks.

Current (total) hospitalizations went from 360 to 4,500,  12X in past 3 weeks.

Not looking mild now. When will action be taken?

https://coronavirus.health.ny.gov/daily-hospitalization-summary…



Yaneer Bar-Yam on Twitter: "New York City Hospitalizations per day from 40 to 1000, i.e. 25X in the past 3 weeks. Current (total) hospitalizations went from 360 to 4,500, 12X in past 3 weeks. Not looking mild now.

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The pandemic caused a big shift in demand from service to durable goods

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A report from the data intelligence company Morning Consult found that 18 percent of health care workers, nearly 1 in 5, have quit their job since February 2020, and another 12 percent have been laid off. According to the survey of 1,000 health care workers, the biggest drivers of the exodus were the pandemic, burnout, and insufficient pay.

 Omicron is creating a 'crisis, red-tier situation' in health care

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Stabilisation signs emerge after inflation palpations | Reuters

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Scientists have developed a biologically-inspired membrane that could quintuple the charge capacity of electric car batteries, thereby massively increasing their range. A team from the University of Michigan used recycled Kevlar – the same material found in bullet-proof vests – to create a network of nanofibres similar to a cell membrane. They then used this to fix fundamental issues with a next-generation battery type, known as lithium-sulfur. Until now, this type of battery’s cycle life – the number of times it can be charged and discharged – has been insufficient for commercial use in electric vehicles, despite their capacity benefits.

 Battery breakthrough quintuples electric vehicle range | The Independent

Samsung and IBM had claimed that their new semiconductor chip design could give smartphones a week-long battery life. The new Vertical Transport Field Effect Transistors (VTFET) design will not yet be used in consumer chips, but the companies claim that they could offer “two times improvement in performance or an 85 percent reduction in energy use” compared to current designs. This is because, for chip manufacturers, Moore’s Law remains a tough challenge. The law states that the number of transistors in a chip doubles every two years, and makers are quickly running out of space. Transistors generally lie flat on the surface of the chip with the current flowering laterally, but with this new design the transistors can be arranged vertically – so electricity can flow up and down.

 Phone batteries could last a week with new chip, IBM and Samsung says | The Independent

Companies are waiting as long as 60 weeks for chips they had ordered to arrive – and it is not expected to get better soon. In October, Intel said it was in the “worst” of a crisis that will not be alleviated until 2023. “We’re in the worst of it now, every quarter next year we’ll get incrementally better, but they’re not going to have supply-demand balance until 2023,” chief executive Pat Gelsinger said.

 Phone batteries could last a week with new chip, IBM and Samsung says | The Independent

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Welcome to the first Apartment List National Rent Report of 2022. Our national index fell by 0.2 percent during the month of December, marking the only time in 2021 when rents declined month-over-month. A slight dip in rents at this time of year is typical of seasonality in the market, but it’s especially notable after a year of record-setting growth.

 Apartment List National Rent Report

• Did rents peak? If so, this could ease inflationary pressures as it's a big part of the CPI
  

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As the pandemic enters its third year, many small businesses across the United States are besieged on three fronts: deepening supply chain issues; periodic staffing shortages; and fewer customers showing up in some areas, fearing the Omicron spike in COVID-19 cases.

 'Upside down again': Omicron surge roils U.S. small businesses | MarketScreener

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Planning to get Omicron in order to gain some immunity or get it over with is a terrible idea, said Eric Topol, a professor of molecular medicine at Scripps Research. “This is a real-deal virus where there’s unpredictability,” he said. “Some people can get very sick. Some people can get long Covid. Some people unwittingly will then get immunocompromised people sick”, leading to hospitalization and death. He added: “There’s too many liabilities, too many uncertainties and unpredictabilities when you get a virus with this known profile that can be very severe and lethal still.” And it’s not at all clear if recovering from Omicron would protect against future variants. If you’ve already gotten Omicron, it may have broadened your T-cell recognition and your B-cell memory and given you “a nice jolt of neutralizing antibodies”, Topol said. But “you can’t possibly make that assertion that Omicron will protect from the future”. 

But isn’t Omicron mild? Definitely not a guarantee. It is still a deadly illness. Omicon is less severe than Delta – but Delta was itself more severe than previous variants. “It can still be severe,” Topol said. He calls it less severe, not milder. “‘Milder’ caught on early, and I think it’s unfortunate it’s given this impression, because there’s so many people dying and winding up in the ICU.” The US has record-high hospitalizations, and cases are more than three times higher than our previous highest peak, a year ago. That’s because the other characteristics of Omicron – its immune-evasiveness and transmissibility – more than outweigh its relatively less severe symptoms. When more people get sick, there are more chances of the illness going very wrong.

 ‘I have no intention of getting infected’: understanding Omicron’s severity | Omicron variant | The Guardian

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Internet giants stand to benefit from a bullish outlook for ad spending, and analysts are raising their price targets. Both BofA Global Research and Morgan Stanley on Wednesday issued lengthy research notes on the 2022 outlook for the web world, with both firms lifting targets for Alphabet (ticker: GOOGL) and Meta Plaforms (FB).

 How Ad Spending Can Help Alphabet and Meta Stock Keep Climbing | Barron's

• Somebody forgot to tell Digital Turbine (APPS) investors..