THANK YOU

As tragic as the human lives being lost to COVID-19, comparing it to combat deaths from World Wars doesn't make much sense. Start by comparing it to flu and cancer deaths.

Ash and Ed, I missed a couple of daily updates due to workload. I found today's update very thoughtful and useful. As you say grim subjects but I look forward to tomorrow's update. Thanks,

Good discussion. My only comment Ash is that more lives will be lost if the economy collapses versus this CV. Once enough of the "threads" of our modern society are broken, those at the bottom will take what those at the top have, either politically or violently. The caring in society will be overwhelmed by majority. Sorry, that the view from someone who has read profusely and been around a long time.

I appreciate the honesty here. Thank you.

During the intro why are we including Ether alongside USD, gold, S&P 500, and VIX... Can we at least agree to a market cap threshold here above $100B, or should we get more smallcap or pennystock updates to balance it out? The SEC is actively investigating Ether as an illegal securities offering. I mean to be respectful but guys, it just doesn't make sense to keep talking about these altcoins like they're legitimate. Look into the founding story of any cryptocurrency and you'll find a history of less than a dozen white men who have unloaded tens or hundreds of millions of dollars onto retail investors in exchange for a grand emotional story about a future that hasn't transpired while their tokenholders lose -90%.

Ash, I feel for you that it´s hard to talk about deaths as a statistic. I liked the human intermezzo where you expressed it is challenging for you guys. We´re with you. BUT this is a macro channel. Number of deaths is a KPI. Next time just say it and don´t feel bad about it. Just saying it and keeping up with the flow makes the show flow better and thus adds more value to us customers. We already know this is grim and people die. Saying the truth as is - that´s all fine and the right thing to do. Don´t worry about it.

Host has a rug?

Hey Ed, common, share your thoughts about the moral hazard for those airline bastards spending huge amounts of buybacks with income and borrowed money. I won't tell. ;-)

As always a great episode and thank you both. I would appreciate a recommendation. What are suggestions for people as to how to invest in their 401ks, IRAs or other types or retirement accounts? As far as I know, you cannot buy real gold or bitcoin or physical real estate in those? Are cash and the GLD gold fund the answer? For many of us, these kind of accounts are the only investment accounts we have. Any thoughts? Very much appreciated. Thank you

Ed, I'm having trouble understanding why you are reluctant to share your views on camera regarding the loss of life versus the blow to the economy by the virus response of sheltering in place. Does that mean you question the value of the damage to the economy compared to the value of the lives lost? Ash was pretty clear that he thinks everyone needs to to save lives, but you weren't. Am I misinterpreting your comments?

Things are really bad. Only grocery stores, hospitals & pet hospitals are open. My hair salon (chain) filed bankruptcy. Life will be different. It's such a depressing time. I hope everyone will be able to cope.

One of the best Daily Briefings. US will change much more after this crisis than it changed after 911. US version of capitalism is broken.

When I heard Ash say there might be 100,000 deaths in USA , as a keen student of worldometer stats I switched this garbage off .

The markets do seem to have moderately corrected in light of all the things happening at once. I suppose there is a chance that the Fed reflates assets, but it could send valuations off the charts literally as earnings collapse. Also, what are the societal and political consequences of a reflation on Wall St. as Main St. is lying in the gutter? I'm going to guess not good.

'What Ed things is the issue is the health care situation in the USA' ......mmmmmmmmm! Come on mate grow a pair of balls and call it like it is!!!! The USA is a Corporate corrupt criminal cesspool and a collapsing Empire ... You know it....The viewers Know it (should know it) .... We all know it .... So do us all a favor and just call it .... Pleeeeesssssseeeee .......?

Dear Ed and Ash- Thank you for the daily commentary ! I agree that this looks really, really bad -no matter how much the fed and treasury are willing to inflate things. Is there any way you can maybe address the 'inflation takeoff' due to 'unlimited QE' that was suggested by Tapiero and RP yesterday? Thanks again for giving us some perspective!! God Bless, wash those hands !! BT

THANK YOU

I really liked the buy equity vs junk bond analogy - great briefing

What are your Twitter handles Ed and Ash? Thanks for the great briefing!

Nobody believes numbers out of China. We should just put a question mark next to it instead of a number, or perhaps just assume a 10x premium.

How fast will we recover once the government gives the signal to go back to work and community? Here's what I know. I'm fortunate to be in a very good position, both financially and physically, but still. - I have cancelled my trip to Europe. -I have cancelled my cruises to Bahamas and Alaska. No cruises for at least six months. -I won't be going to Las Vegas anytime soon. -I won't be attending plays, concerts, or even movie theaters for awhile. -I won't go to my gym for a few months. I'll just work out at home. -I won't go to the larger more popular restaurants. If I go out to eat, it will be a the smaller ones with outside dining options. -I won't be visiting my kids and grandkids back East because I don't want to catch anything and I don't want to transmit anything to them from the airplane. -I won't be flying for a few months unless it's an emergency. -I won't be taking my usual weekend trips to different cities for fun. -I won't be using air BNB for a while either. And I don't want to stay in hotels for a while. -I won't be taking cabs or Uber for a while. -I won't be using my club pool or spa. I'm not being paranoid, just prudent for a few months. Now if I have the financial means and think this way, how many who are adversely affected by loss of job will cut out even more stuff from participating in the economy even after they can go out? What do you think?

Ash Bennington... any relation to Chester? They look similar.

Great job guys. I've been looking forward each day to these daily briefings since they started. Keep up the great work and stay safe.

Great and very thoughtful update. Thanks Ash and Ed. Refreshing compared to the unintelligent "news" and headlines I'm ignoring.

Hi, good news, we are not losing millions of lives, the animal spirits of the world are being stretched like a 100lb cross bow and we will get this economy roaring like a Ferrari, First gear in 30 days and each month a new gear. we probably go lower first but not 50%, maybe 15%. real vision should start program: Real Help, we all sign up to reach out to 10 people that we know need $, encouragement, hope or all three. The world is united for first time ever in coordinated war against a common enemy, you can already see the beauty if you look for it. Spending quality time with kids, not so focused on rushing out to work, spiritual reflection and deep desire to help others instead of constant distractions. Great program guys, keep up the work.

I appreciate the stronger tone about the seriousness of this pandemic both as a human tragedy and in market forecasting. From my point of view the market was way overvalued with passive investing, quants and especially buybacks. A 20% decline may have taken us to a fair value before the pandemic. That is why I feel we have much further to fall. Money can be made in even volatile times, so many subscribers are looking for good trades ideas. I wish them good luck. I am just watching and trying to understand how we are going to get through this. As more and more of us have friends and family contracting the coronavirus, we will all become more sensitive to costs that will have to be paid. On a positive note I am giving blood tomorrow. DLS

Thanks Ed and Ash....you guys do a great job!!!!

Completely agree: The level of the SP500 is ridiculous considering all that is happening in the World ... in synch! I wonder what is making it levitate at these ( 2017 ... FFS! ) levels instead of dropping like a rock. Almost needless to say: I am actively short and will add more puts if it touches 2,700.

Great chat guys - I couldn't agree more. I'll give you a bit of anecdotal background from the perspective of a moderately successfull small business. I operate a few businesses here in Toronto. One significant misunderstanding I'm seeing in market commentary - a real disconnect from what I'm seeing on the ground - is the idea that this is a government led shut down. In our experience, it's not. It's a market-demand driven shutdown led by the consumer. Example: One of my businesses has been fully booked until 1 am 7 days/week for 5 years. We receive an avg of 50 net new bookings per day. One week before the government mandated our closure, we saw a drop from 50 to -5 (cancellations outpacing new bookings) within a 48 hour period... > 100% down. While I think we are something of an outlier, our situation being exacerbated by the fact that people were especially straying from booking for *next week*, the fact remains that our situation - combined with the Open Table data - shows that this has been a demand driven shutdown of small businesses. One could almost argue that the government had to shut down small business in order to provide them with an excuse for their lack of liquidity. While we have a healthy runway, the VAST majority of small businesses here weren't even able to survive that 1 week drop in demand... several already defaulted on payroll. Ultimately, I was encouraged last week by the extreme measures taken by feds: full payroll support in the US, 75% in Canada along with a forgive-able loan which amounts to a $10k grant meant to support rent. However, today, the Canadian gov't decided to push a major announcement re: the grant's conditions to tomorrow. Most were waiting to decide how they would handle rent and I think many will now simply decide to default. I think that the gov't was already playing with fire by not ensuring that the money was already *in their hands* by Apr first. The govt's aggressive action so far makes me think they will backstop any mortgage defaults but the uncertainty is driving significant negative pressure on employment, loan, and rent decisions. Even with the stimulus, I thought they had just barely done enough *if they were able to roll it out rapidly and without any real hiccups*. Well, I've lost faith that they're going to be able to do that. Coming back to our 'return to work' - Planning for a worst case scenario, I'm currently in the process of designing an aggressive strategy that will accommodate a 75% drop in demand for 6-12 months. With 25% gross margins, you can see what we plan to do to our payroll, rent, and other expenses. This is probably overshooting so let's say a solid scenario puts us at 60% of pre-Mar 7th revenues... If small businesses see this across the board, you'll see a lot of owners pulling hours themselves and not re-hiring staff, negotiating reduced rent with leveraged landlords that don't have better options, etc.. I think you guys are absolutely right - the momentum behind what's happening is being underestimated. I especially like the idea that many are being overly reliant on data - a highly reactive situation... getting predictive based on logical analysis of small business behaviour becomes necessary at some point here if you want to stay ahead of the markets. What I've been expecting so far is this: The gov't makes an announcement of massive stimulus... market rallies, but because the govt is setup to assimilate information related to marginal sector wide *quarterly* changes in business activity, they misfire both in quantity and ability to rollout quickly (it's now been 3 weeks since that demand fell off a cliff). We then see those who are equipped to parse this info - Goldman, BMO, TD, etc.. report more negative info and markets fall... then gov't announces more stimulus, etc... chasing their tail with money when what they're really going to need is a time machine. I think this is more or less what's going to happen. And to be clear, I think they'll succeed at propping the markets (unless I'm missing some financial domino), UNTIL we get sent back to work and the real shock sets in. Small businesses are quiet and embarrassed - we won't know how bad it is until their forced to show their hands. Thanks again guys - you're killing it.

Excellent cogent commentary. You guys are nailing it and highlighting key metrics that matter. As a Real Vision subscriber I really appreciate your focused discussion on some tough topics. It is helping me to form big picture investment strategy going forward.

I think this is going to be more of a lightening bolt shaped recovery.

Going to be interesting how the "snap back" happens by demographics. For many that entered the workforce in the last 10-15 years, this will be the first real setback in employment they have faced.

Ash and Ed are great.

I just want to point out that countries like mine, Canada, as well as European countries etc that have State health care are woefully unprepared for this. Canada is not even equipped to deal with the slow but steady increase of the aging population needing more and more health care. People with COVID here are being told over the phone to self isolate and to spend days and days alone while they can hardly breath. The animal spirits will fare NO BETTER in the State run systems. They may actually fare worse. Health care run by government is awful. I know, I live it.

I guess ed Harrison is reading up on macro tourist.

If you don't hold it, you don't own it. Real financial shields are in the form of physical gold and silver that you have in your possession.

Their Economic Models ignore the role of Personal Credit. Just as they ignore Inflation of Assets

Most regular people run out of money in 3 weeks. Criminal banksters run out of money in two days.

A good, if sobering, discussion. There was a very good point about the uniqueness of the current situation making it difficult to predict the future. We have seen a little of this already. When markets were first down around 10%, there were a lot of articles about how that was the point when, historically, markets snap back. Clearly that didn't happen.

Knightian Uncertainty - Excellent

Great job guys. Its not an easy talk to have. But its essential for us who want to feel connected to the reality of the situation. I take a lot from this talk just from the frankness of it alone, so thank you.

The situation is really grim. I believe the market is in la la land, and we're probably only 50% of the way down.

Good briefing at a hard time for all of us. Well done, and thank you.

NB: 6pm EST is now 11pm GMT, home screen still says 10pm GMT

Great job. Thanks.