Lithium Americas Corp (LAAC)

[tikotiko]

Hi all,

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

I have been watching the site above to get a more objective view of the virus numbers and to filter the avalanche of news. I am truly sorry to hear the news of people getting sick, especially seniors who seem to be the most fragile. However, my emphasis here is on the effect on the market and on estimating when we may expect the conditions to improve. I have a PhD in Civil Environmental Engineering, so I do have a bit of experience in microbial growth, spread, and in treatment/disinfection of bacteria and viruses in water quality. However, I am not an expert at all in the field. I nevertheless felt like sharing my simple analysis of the web site above, which is updated on a daily basis. I look at the graphs, the statistics such as the growth factor which will hopefully drop consistently below 1.0 in the future for good news, and statistics for individual countries that are ahead of us in the pandemic. The latter is important, because we may expect a somewhat similar behavior in how countries get infected, hit a peak in infections and slowly recover (notwithstanding obvious differences in control measures, healthcare system, reliable numbers, good vs. poor testing, population, size, etc.) . The two best examples of countries that are a bit ahead of us are China and South Korea, which I summarize below:

1) The graph of Active Cases in China suggests late December or early January as the date when cases began to spike, February 4th as a point of inflection in the curve from concave to convex, and February 18th as the peak before the sharp reduction in active cases. This indicates a period of about 7-8 weeks from the first spike of infections to the peak, and about 2 weeks from the inflection point to the peak.

2) South Korea is a bit behind China. The graph of active cases for South Korea suggest a starting point in early February or about 1 month after China. This makes sense since the virus originated in China and South Korea is next door. We can’t yet confirm that South Korea has reached its peak based on its graph of Active Cases, but it appears that the peak may be less than a week away (refer to graph of Active Cases in South a Korea by clicking the country). If this peak is confirmed next week, then the period from the start to the peak for South Korea would be around 6-7 weeks. It could be a bit shorter than China’s 7-8 week period due to the smaller country size, which could have accelerated the spread of the virus. In addition, if the peak is reached next week, then the point of inflection in the graph of early March may result in the same 2-week gap observed in China. I intend to keep tracking South Korea.

Why is this relevant?

Iran and Italy are being hit hard and may be a couple of weeks behind South Korea, so they may go through their peaks by say late March. France, Spain, Germany, the U.K. and other European Countries are probably 3-4 weeks behind South Korea, so this may put their peak to around early-mid April. Finally, I believe that the US and Canada may be 5-6 weeks behind South Korea, which would place their peaks at around mid to late April. I may be wrong in my predictions due to poor assumptions, better or worse containment measures by individual countries, weather, possible mutations, etc., but I will be pleased if my predictions for the peaks are within a couple of weeks from what actually happens. There will be many more cases, risk and news for months after the peak, but the worst will be over.

Based on the above, I think it is reasonable to expect more bad virus news and for the market to tank for at least another month (or more?). Many of us have been buying cheap shares. My prediction of the peak to hit the US in about a month provides at least 4 weeks to buy shares. I plan to do just that while always keeping cash on the side.

I am open to other takes and opinions. Again, I am no expert, this is IMHO, DYOR, 1.5 plants, multi-bagger, 909, blah, blah, blah, etc.

Good luck, be cautious in the market and be safe wherever you live.