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Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

nytimes.com

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Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#31
post #7

Broadly speaking the US economy is quite healthy and people were expecting a correction in the stock market for some time. Within tech, it will have some negative impact on the plans of some companies as it will be harder to get lofty valuations based on 'fluff'... during such times investors want to see hard facts and real results to back-up value--but that's a broader trend thats been slowly developing for some tim…

Interested to know which statistics you based this opinion of the US economy being "quite healthy" on. Anything deeper than top level unemployment rate?

PS... I don't deny that a subset of the US economy/workforce got hit really hard in 2008 and never recovered. But when you look at the US economy as a whole things are doing quite well.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#32

It's hard for me to tell whether this is just a "correction" (massive deflation after exuberance) or an actual meltdown. I had predicted the actual meltdown for September of 2015, but I guess this is pretty close. I wonder how this will affect my life, if at all. "The New York Stock Exchange said it will halt trading for 15 minutes if the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index drops 7 percent." [0] How is it fair that the marke…

"I had predicted the actual meltdown for September of 2015, but I guess this is pretty close. I wonder how this will affect my life, if at all."

If you predicted it, then it should at least make you rich? :)

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#33

How do oil prices factor into this? The price has already been diving in this last quarter. Oil stocks also make up a huge portion of the Dow formula.

It's a sympathetic response.

Some of it is going to be people selling assets to cover margin calls if they are overly leveraged.

Some of it is people selling because everything's declining and the want to wait it out.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#34

The global panic might have a good reason, this is probably the first time China goes through a true financial crisis. Their ability to deal with such situation is by and large unknown to anyone.

China (as we know it) can't suffering economic down turn.

The Communists largely maintain power though the threat of Its us or chaos. Which before and during the communist rise China was pretty bad off. This is more or less the social contract we make your life better, you give up your rights.

If it becomes clear the central government can't control the economy. We'll likely see a rise in anti-government protests.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#35
post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which completely falls apart if you are 'unlucky' and buy at the wrong time. So by its very nature, buying that index fund requires good timing as well. Just ask Japanese investors. Or Chinese investors from 2007. They went sideways for eight years, and after their bubble deflates will likely see 20 total sideways years. Or the Nasdaq from 1999 to 2012. Point being, even the premise of index buying requires some smar…

> even the premise of index buying requires some smart timing Or just investing a regular amount of new money on a regular schedule, which will even out the timing issues.

This is only true if your investment horizon is sufficiently long (I expect you know this, but it's important to point out for correctness).

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#36

It's hard for me to tell whether this is just a "correction" (massive deflation after exuberance) or an actual meltdown. I had predicted the actual meltdown for September of 2015, but I guess this is pretty close. I wonder how this will affect my life, if at all. "The New York Stock Exchange said it will halt trading for 15 minutes if the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index drops 7 percent." [0] How is it fair that the marke…

> How is it fair that the markets get put on pause if they're failing? I really don't understand.

That just means the ruling class is in panic mode, trying to prevent the inevitable from happening, just like their peers in China recently.

In China they managed to temporarily stem the tide, but the real crash is still coming, of course, just like it is all over the West.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interested to know which statistics you based this opinion of the US economy being "quite healthy" on. Anything deeper than top level unemployment rate?

I am also interested in seeing the data which claims that the US economy is quite healthy right now. The unemployment rate is a juked stat; check out the labor force participation rates if you want the full story. A primer: labor force participation got smashed in the Great Financial Crisis, and still hasn't recovered.

The participation rate is down 3.3% from 2005 [1]. Given the huge shift in demographics over the last 10 years [2], I don't think that's a data point that screams "smashed."

[1] http://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS11300000

[2] Lost of baby boomers retiring and Gen X being such a small demo compared to the boomers and the millennials.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interested to know which statistics you based this opinion of the US economy being "quite healthy" on. Anything deeper than top level unemployment rate?

Debt to income ratios, capitalization of companies, worker productivity, oil prices, savings rates, more healthy housing prices (in most areas), foreclosure rates, industrial orders, housing starts, .... This isn't 2007-08.

Wages are shit for workers and thus consumption/demand are weak... this undermines the Chinese economy, which in turn undermines the US economy.

Labor force participation is also garbage. Savings rates are a bit moot when tons of people are living paycheck to paycheck, also.

It's not 2007-2008, but it's not quite 1998 either.

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