Mark Perry's Monday Evening Links Edition -- All Charts Edition -- November 22, 2020

Re-posting:

• https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/monday-evening-links-all-chart-edition/.

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Apple

Apple: the reviews with regard to the new Apple M1 chip and the new entry-level laptop computers have me salivating. Best deals this next Black Friday: link here. The revolution explained:

• first things first: the computers do not look any different. They remain identical on the outside. To know if you have the "old" computer or the "new" computer, you need to look at the specs.
• second, the "old" Apple computers used INTEL chips; the "new" Apple computers use their own new chips, referred to as M1 chips (I assume meaning the "first iteration of Mac" or "first iteration of Apple chips)

How are Intel chips different than Apple chips? One word: smaller. The Apple chips use transistors that are smaller. How much smaller? Get this: half the size. From this link:

Unlike Intel’s chips, the M1 is built using a 5-nanometer process, meaning its transistors measure just 5 nanometers in size. Intel, meanwhile, is stuck on a 10-nanometer process, and recently announced its 7-nm chips would be delayed. AMD (AMD), for its part, is working with 7-nm chips, meaning that Apple is already ahead of the curve.

In case you don't like reading paragraphs but prefer data points:

• Intel: 10-nanometer transistors; their announced move to 7-nanometers has been delayed; ouch;
• AMD: is working with 7-nanometer transistors
• Apple's Silicon Valley / M1 transistors: 5 nanometers

In addition, the entire computer is designed to work as one unit:

• CPU
• GPU
• hardware
• software

For example, from the linked review, the M1 chip in the MacBook Pro means that Apple uses its own image signal processor for its FaceTime camera, which dramatically improves the image quality of your video chats. 

I was never really bothered by fans but apparently a lot of folks were. The new Apple laptops using the M1 don't have fans. Huge.

And then, finally this:

As for battery life, Apple promises the Pro will get a whopping 20 hours of power out of a single charge while playing back video, compared to 10 hours for the Intel version of the machine. .... the battery in [the linked] review unit seemed like it just wouldn’t quit. Even after a full day of use, [it] still had plenty of juice to keep using the Pro well into the night.

By the way, the reviewer had only one complaint. And then speaks volumes about the reviewer and his understanding of the word "mobile." 

What’s not so fantastic is that the M1-powered Pro includes just two Thunderbolt/ USB C ports, while the Intel version gets 4. If you’re the type of person who needs as many ports as possible, that’s a big bummer.

The laptop is designed for "those on the go." How many ports do you need? And if you need more ports, external ports are a dime a dozen.

Quick, pop quiz: how many transistors are on a single Apple M1 chip:

• 10?
• 20?
• 50? or,
• 100?

Link here for answer.  Or here to get to the source article.

Or at wiki. At the wiki link, go to the table/spreadsheet, and scroll to the bottom. Note where Apple stands. 

This is a big deal. Even I didn't realize what a big deal this was -- and the price for these new computers. They have not increased in price. 

The end of Moore's Law? Link here to a 2018 article.

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Investing

The Big Short: read this story and then watch The Big Short. Or watch The Big Short and then read that article. Struggling retailers owe $52 billion in overdue rents.

The situation is different this time. With regard to the housing bubble back in 2007 or thereabouts there was outright fraud, and everyone knew that mortgage rates were going to re-set (significantly higher in 2007). At the time, 2007, or thereabouts, no one knew how that would play out.

In the current case, there is not a "bubble" per se -- at least as "bubbles" are usually defined. Brick-and-mortar retailers have been struggling for years (decades?) and what should have been a slow meltdown, occurring over another ten years, from 2020 - 2030, was telescoped from 2020 to 2022 due to, for the most part, the Chinese flu pandemic, which will last about the same number of years as the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918 - 1920. 

And unlike the housing bubble which faced a reset of the mortgage rates there is no suggestion that an increase in mortgage rates will be a factor this time. In fact, another round of stimulus money is more likely and continued Fed relief. And the Fed will return to emergency fund lending. 

By the way, how much is $52 billion? Not much in the big scheme of things, particularly when it is spread out across the country, and among thousands of retailers. And this headline to put the $52 billion in perspective: Mnuchin asked the Fed to return $455 billion in unspent Covid-19 emergency funds.

But there are going to be a lot of huge empty buildings by the end of next year: movie theaters; gyms; anchor stores in big indoor malls.

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Regeneron

Re-Gen-a-Ron -- accent on second syllable.

Re-Gen-i-Ron -- accent on second syllable.

I don't know if that's correct but that's how I remember it.

Chinese flu news: FDA authorized emergency use of antibody treatment given to President Trump. Timing was interesting. 

Approved after the election. The "deep state" is starting to change the narrative. Keep approving more treatment regimens; release the vaccines; and the new administration can "follow the science" and not mandate a return to more draconian measures. The new administration has to flatten the curve within three months, prevent a third wave, and declare an end to the pandemic within twelve months if they hope to make gains in the mid-term elections. Link here for the Regeneron story; the comments are most interesting, as  usual. 

The Regeneron solution is a "cocktail" of  two monoclonal antibodies, which, of course, to 99.99% of the lay public, means nothing...."monoclonal what ...":

• REGN10933: casirivimab
• REGN10987: imdevimab

Regeneron is traded on NASDAQ (REGN). 

Background for monoclonal antibodies:

The development of monoclonal antibodies by Georges Köhler and César Milstein, in their attempt to understand the mechanisms by which cells of the human immune system are capable of producing so diverse a repertoire of antibodies, was recognized in the award of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1984, shared with Niels Jerne. 

In the last two decades such antibodies have been used to treat a wide range of conditions, including malignancies and autoimmune disorders. 

New techniques for synthesizing monoclonal antibodies now make it possible to use transgenic mice to generate antibodies similar to human antibodies. 

A virus infection, due to Ebola virus, has been treated in successful experiments using either humanized antibodies generated from mice or antibodies obtained from convalescent human patients. 

This suggests the possibility of treating COVID-19 with monoclonal antibodies directed against structural elements of the virus. Fusion of coronaviruses with human cells requires “docking” of specialized glycoproteins, “spikes”, which protrude from the viral surface and interact with specific molecules on the surface of host cells. 

The virus binds, through the spike protein’s receptor binding domain, to a membrane bound enzyme, ACE-2, and its entry into the cell is activated by a transmembrane serine protease, TMPRSS2. The spike protein, whose sequence differs greatly from one type of coronavirus to another, presents a target for therapy by antiviral antibodies.

That article goes on to explain the number of genomes identified and kept in the company's "library" of genomes and why the company decided to go with two antibodies in the cocktail. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. 

The FDA press release here, released yesterday, Saturday, November 21, 2020. 

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization for casirivimab and imdevimab to be administered together for the treatment of mild to moderate COVID-19 in adults and pediatric patients (12 years of age or older weighing at least 40 kilograms [about 88 pounds]) with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 viral testing and who are at high risk for progressing to severe COVID-19. 

This includes those who are 65 years of age or older or who have certain chronic medical conditions. 

In a clinical trial of patients with COVID-19, casirivimab and imdevimab, administered together, were shown to reduce COVID-19-related hospitalization or emergency room visits in patients at high risk for disease progression within 28 days after treatment when compared to placebo. The safety and effectiveness of this investigational therapy for use in the treatment of COVID-19 continues to be evaluated. Casirivimab and imdevimab must be administered together by intravenous (IV) infusion.

There is more that could be written but time to move on. 

From my perspective: under an Obama administration, The New York Times Sunday edition headline: Cure For Covid-19 Approved. National Nightmare Is Over. Index case, 74-year-old male with significant co-morbidities, symptomatic for Covid-19; less than 72 hours in the hospital after being treated with this regimen.

We won't see that headline until January 21, 2020. 

By the way, if this works, one can expect mini-step-up Covid-19 units -- not ICUs -- in which once patients have been examined, tested, and given presumptive diagnosis of Covid-19, will immediately be given the intravenous cocktail, admitted to a 72-hour step-up unit and treated there. Most will be discharged after 72 hours; some will be released sooner and treated as outpatients; some will require transfer to ICU. Here in north Texas there are a lot of under-used stand-alone emergency rooms, perfect for 72-hour-step-up-treatment. But the Medicare and insurance reimbursement must be "substantial" for this to happen.

All things being equal, the market should do very, very well. In some regards, a proven treatment regimen is better than a rushed vaccine.

The letter in PDF format can be found at this link. This is a screen shot of the first page of many pages: