BaylorSpineGuy said:

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It's illogical. But the volume of selling on Monday was SIGNIFICANTLY larger than the day the stock ripped 30-35 points on a good earnings report in July.

I seriously doubt Evergrande had HCA investors shaking in their boots.

Yes, they have massive profits. I have no inside knowledge of this company, and I own no shares. I do work (indirectly) for the company and will not short sell my employer, but I'm simply showing some things to watch.

The only thing I'm not sure is how long FEMA is gonna keep paying for nurses to travel all over the country. Not sure if you are all aware, but traveling nurses are making f-loads of money. Some in the $200-500K range for traveling. FEMA has foot the bill particularly for COVID travel nurses. I know personally one who was offered $110/hr to train other nurses how to set up a cardiac OR (that should pay $35-45/hr IMO).

My understanding is that nursing is between 50-60% of expenses for any hospital (again, no insider knowledge and I'm not on any financial board at the hospital). My guess is HCA is basically running at almost half cost. When the travel nursing thing dries up (COVID stimulus already has), then their profits will come back to Earth. If someone has that knowledge….that may be worth some coin. Not sure if that has to be legislated or if it's buried in the COVID bill somewhere in the past.

That's the only thing I can think. But the chart does look toppy. And it's down from its ATH of about $263+.

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I think there is a bigger issue with respect to nursing. My wife is a nurse and is upset about how COVID has played out with hospitals/health groups have been treating nurses.

Long story short fellas - nurses are simply burnt out. It's already a stressful & emotional job in which the nurses have been used as the jack of all trades in a healthcare setting. Need someone to do Rehab/PT? Make a nurse do it. Need someone to run a Patient down to surgery? Make a nurse do it.

This is in addition to these nurses having 4-6 patients that they are constantly caring for including changing wound dressings, assisting to the bathroom, helping patients shower, delivering meds (this is an lengthy ordeal in itself), etc. That's just the regular stuff and assumes no patients have emergency coding or anything. They are "supposed" to have 30 minutes for lunch but 98% of them don't ever get that or let alone 5 minutes to go to the bathroom.

They do all this for 35-40$ an hour, sometimes a bit more during the holidays. Then COVID hits and these nurses are treated worse and worse. Floor managers and hospital executives simply don't care, they treat the nurses as cannon fodder. They are losing revenue from non-critical surgeries and regular operations. Combine that with limited supplies and protection equipment it starts to piss off the local staff nurses.

Then to address the increased workflow - they bring in Subsidized Travel Nurses who are given easier assignments, preferred schedules and pay them double or triple what they were paying their on-staff nurses. These on-staff nurses see this and get upset with a $0.50 pay raise and a one-time $1000 bonus and decide to leave. They are going to go work for the travel agency where if they are going suffer, at least they will get paid handsomely for it.

That just makes the burden worse on the remaining on-staff nurses and eventually most quit and are replaced by travel nurses. It's bad at the hospitals and this is just an example for Baylor Scott & White in Dallas. There are other local DFW hospitals that are fairing much worse.

I've heard of Memorial Hermann in Houston offering $12,500 signing bonuses plus $45 base pay plus $10K referral bonuses to any nurse who join the NICU. That is a unit that typically has preferred tons of prior experience cause it involves tiny babies with tough medical issues.

Anyways, sorry for the rant. But to BaylorSpineGuy's point - FEMA subsidizing travel nursing has altered the nursing industry more than meets the eye cause these hospitals are going to need much bigger carrots to lure them back now that they have the taste of $75+ hour pay which truly compensates them for the sh*t they put up with.

Imo Nursing is one of the most noble professions and a good nurse deserves whatever they can make. Tell your wife thanks!

ProgN said:

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ROKU was upgraded yesterday and downgraded today.

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Nancy's assistant gave the wrong memo.....

This is the first time I have been in front of a Bloomberg in 2 weeks... So short and sweet... Overnight equities tried to rally but were reversed by the Chinese meddling in cryto... That has sent a risk off mood overnight, but we are not certain that will last.... Treasuries showed their true color on Hawkish tapering yesterday... Historically the real markets react to the Fed in about 18 hours...10 years overnight hit 1.45.. The next big level is 1.50... Resistance becomes the old support at 1.38... Our opinion, without going into much detail, is that tapering is much worse for the markets than many anticipate... Not only do we see it as tightening, but tightening on steroids..... It is Friday and could reverse some of the massive losses of yesterday. 30 years had their worse debacle in 18 months yesterday... It will not be a one day event.

Evergrande... We think the contagion aspects in the US are limited... So far no real widening in US HY... In fact 5 issuers came yesterday including 3 first timers... IG came with 7 deals totaling over 7 billion yesterday... We are still skeptical of the valuations of equities, especially if 10 years head to 2%... But that is not today.

Took 29 cumulative pts on MES to start the day. That's way better than the other thing I've been doing lately.

OH, and I still have a runner!

Entered Uber lotto calls, sold net free, then put a trailing stop for 290% gain! I am done for the day!

McInnis 03 said:

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McInnis 03 said:

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Took MNQ long at 15205

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Holy hell. Sold half, stops to B/E but that's about to mvoe up too

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Closed it. Daily goal met. Wowzers. That felt good.

New HY for 10 Year... 1.447... Charts Looking Ugly... Fed Inflation fears

First observation is that the treasury market is in trouble... Fed is ready to taper...if they get any decent employment number on October 8, they will announce and start tapering in November... Market is not ready for this and is going through an adjustment faze..1.50 looks next but it won't stop there.. 1.60 is clearly a target...Fed is worried about inflation... And per our comment earlier that tapering is tightening on steroids... Many will disagree... The Fed is about to give the street back their risk of duration... If the Fed taper starts in November and ends first half of 2022... That is 120 billion a month that the street is going to take down,...then the Fed backstop will be gone until the next crisis... Problem is that tapering does nothing for the current economy except make asset prices too high... Supply chain issues are horrible... Shelves are no longer fully stocked in stores... Inflation continues to ramp up... Transitory thoughts are not based in fact... So look for treasuries to adjust... Meanwhile corporate spreads are still solid... Hopefully it will be the treasury market that adjusts...but it could leak into the risk category...meaning equities... Not our call just yet... But we think treasuries have much further to go.

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