Well of course timing the market is possible. It’s always possible. The question is, is timing the market advisable for me? And is it worth the stress and hassle and worry? As far as is it advisable, I have zero confidence in my ability to make good decisions on average on when to move my money into the market and out of the market. It’s far better to just pick a stock/bond allocation that I’m comfortable with and just keep it invested like that no matter what. It’s far, far less stressful than worrying about should I sell should I buy should I invest in canned goods and firearms, etc. So it’s great that you were able to sell at the peak, good job. Like Riverman says you should start a hedge fund and become a billionaire, good luck. But stop taunting us plebs with your sick market timing skillz.
WHY ARE YOU BUYING STOCKS RIGHT NOW??? If 35 million infected and 200k dead is the best case scenario for the US you should be completely out of the stock market. And stocking up on firearms and bottled water. I’m totally serious.
It’s really hard for smart people to accept that they can’t beat a widely diversified buy and hold strategy. Almost every investor I know (including myself, obviously) went through a “try to beat the market” phase.
Also, paging the “retiring at 32 with $1.1 million all equities, FIRE baby” crowd.
Good for you!
Stay safe and keep saving.
I think this is almost right, except that the quarantines are going to be imposed on a sporadic, pointless crazy basis based on Trump’s political instincts and which sycophant has talked to him most recently.
If you want to be an efficient markets fundamentalist, you can argue that the new information over the weekend wasn’t about the spread of the virus (well-understood already) or Trump’s unfitness (same), but rather that the public health bureaucracy has been so thoroughly rolled by Trump somehow that they’re not going to be able to put on any kind of effective response in spite of the administration. That’s new and terrible.
Maybe. I think it might boil down to who actually has what legal authority. I thought I read somewhere that the CDC has broad legal authority to impose quarantines? So if the CDC can, without presidential approval, quarantine cities, order schools to close, etc, then we might be OK. If that stuff has to be approved by the president then that’s obviously not great.
Maybe I was taught differently, but talk of getting into and out of the market is weird to me. If you need the money in the next 2 years, it shouldn’t be in stocks anyway. If your horizon is 10 years+, stop paying so close attention. Deal with the fact that you may go a decade with 0% price appreciation. Save like Eckleburg and you’ll be fine.
Unless you think we are looking at long term societal level changes, then get the fuck out. Buy a cabin in the woods, set up power and water, and buy a hunting rifle.
As I understand it, the goal is probably no longer preventing an epidemic, but managing it so that the the peak of the outbreak is smaller and pushed into the future so that the health care system isn’t as overwhelmed and has more time to prepare, but the bulk of cases happen over a longer period of time. So, if there are measures that can be taken but have a negative economic effect, those measures might be in place for a longer period of time if things like quarantine measure become the norm.
Obviously, Trump would prefer that the drag on the economy doesn’t last as long, so he is going to push for any restrictions to be lifted ASAP. Predicting what’s going to happen so that you can time the market requires figuring out how stupid Trump will be and to what degree Congress and the bureaucracy will back him. Republicans might not back Trump automatically when it is their lives and their loved ones directly at risk.
CDC quarantine authority is granted to the Secretary of HHS, but delegated in practice to CDC:
So, probably Azar could veto the CDC on a quarantine issue (or just replace the director).
That’s encouraging imo. Obviously Trump could fire the CDC director over a quarantine order he didn’t like, but that or Azar overruling a CDC quarantine decision is extremely unlikely. There’s no way that wouldn’t leak and it would be an absolutely huge story, I just don’t see it happening.
Well, as long as the CDC director is someone of utmost integrity who would threaten to quit and make a huge fuss about it to the media if the Trump administration prioritized ideology over science, it shouldn’t be a problem.
Quoted for posterity.
I always pronounce the word “finance” as FIE-NANCE, but when I’m feeling all classy, I like to go with FNANCE.
Trump already overruled a CDC quarantine decision. And it leaked.
For anyone like me who knows Chicago has a lot of violent crimes but wasn’t exactly sure the murder rate, there were 490 last year and 756 in 2016 which was the highest since 1996.
Not enough "lol inso0"s on the planet for the “fewer than 800 people will die of covid-19 in the US” take.
the fuck are you talking about?
Reasonable chance that today will be a larger % decline in the Dow than the worst day during the global financial crisis (-7.87%).
That’s…wasn’t a quarantine order? A quarantine order legally mandates isolation for people. But sure, that proves my point. The administration softened the CDC’s recommendation from “senior citizens and immunocompromised shouldn’t take commercial flights” to “senior citizens and immunocompromised should avoid crowds and avoid long trips.” THAT minor change was leaked to the papers.