Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows • Hacker News Board

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#211

Post by wiremine » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:22 PM UTC

cryoshon wrote: post #83

wiremine wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The demographic shift angle doesn't make sense. The boomers are slowly exiting the workforce, sure-- on an individual basis, as they can choose to retire at different times. Many are having to defer retirement or not retire. This isn't an orderly mass exit, it's a trickle. Millenials are a far larger generation than the boomers, and are rapidly leaving college and attempting to enter the workforce-- 100% of them are…

> Jobs lost in the early depression haven't returned

There are actually more jobs now then there were in 2005:

- January 2005: 132,752,000

- January 2015: 140,793,000

Source: http://data.bls.gov/pdq/SurveyOutputServlet?request_action=w...

Obviously the _type_ of jobs have changed, and this doesn't factor in population growth directly, but I don't think the statement "jobs lost in the early depression haven't returned" isn't grounded in the data.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#212

Post by anonu » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:22 PM UTC

dave_sullivan wrote: post #203

acjohnson55 wrote: post #152

A whole lot of aphorisms in this commentary about falling knives and dead cats, but very little actual information. If you're trying to time the bottom you may as well take your money to the blackjack table. The quants are probably going to make a bunch of money, but if you're just a regular person, you should probably just continue making your regularly scheduled 401k contributions and diversified investments. Histo…

Ah, but those quants are going to make a bunch of money... There's a cottage industry forming around finding market distortions caused by bad algos. You'd think that there wouldn't be a bunch of bots running around making stupid decisions, but there are a lot of bots that haven't been updated in some time and were put in place according to some idealized rule-based model in some esoteric area of finance that one guy…

Someone really bit the dust this morning in ETF land. Lots of US ETFs were down 10,20,30% and were halted due to circuit breakers. There is some quant/market-making firm out there that is really paying for this today.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#213

Post by civilframe » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

fweespeech wrote: post #189

dataker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regardless of your ideological background, you cannot possibly assert the U.S economy is healthy. 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy. QE is not healthy. 100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. Inflating assets is not healthy. A vanishing middle-class is not healthy.

Honestly, I don't think you have a clue what you are talking about. You aren't wrong, per-say, you just list all things that have literally 0 to do with the actual problems. Its a very common political trick for an ideologue like yourself to grab a bunch of things they think are bad and argue they are the cause of all your ills. You are approaching things from a "this is good for people, it must be good for the count…

Excellent points. Most people confuse macroeconomics with microeconomics. You cannot apply the principles of personal finance to a national economy.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#214

Post by anonu » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:23 PM UTC

forgetsusername wrote: post #187

alyx wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested to hear other people's experiences. I have a 100k trading portfolio and I have sold/bought nothing in the last week. Thoughts on who's doing all this downward trading?

> Thoughts on who's doing all this downward trading? I imagine at least some of it is hedgies being crushed by oil sub-$40 as well as the AAPL correction (which was the #1 holding for a lot of funds). Lots of paper being re-positioned. It was absolutely nuts this morning. VIG, which is the dividend growth ETF, composed of large-stock US companies, was down 18% at one point! I couldn't get any buys filled, though.

I think this was due to a rogue market-maker with bad algos. Market data was all over the place this morning. Nobody had a clear view on what the market order book looked like. I'm pretty sure theres a market-making firm out there that may not be in business tomorrow.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#215

Post by pyrrhotech » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

acjohnson55 wrote: post #152

A whole lot of aphorisms in this commentary about falling knives and dead cats, but very little actual information. If you're trying to time the bottom you may as well take your money to the blackjack table. The quants are probably going to make a bunch of money, but if you're just a regular person, you should probably just continue making your regularly scheduled 401k contributions and diversified investments. Histo…

The only way quants can make money is from active traders on the other side. It's impossible for quants to make money off buy and hold index investors. If everyone took your advice (and I do), there'd be no such thing as quants

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#216

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:27 PM UTC

rsmckinney wrote: post #183

acjohnson55 wrote: post #152

A whole lot of aphorisms in this commentary about falling knives and dead cats, but very little actual information. If you're trying to time the bottom you may as well take your money to the blackjack table. The quants are probably going to make a bunch of money, but if you're just a regular person, you should probably just continue making your regularly scheduled 401k contributions and diversified investments. Histo…

"Historically speaking" Historically speaking, when has the Fed kept interest rates at ZERO for 7 years? After pumping QE full throttle at $80B/mo? The economy has been in continuous "recovery" mode since '08, but not much has actually recovered. The market is going to collapse my friend because, historically speaking, we are in dark, uncharted territory and have lost our way back.

> After pumping QE full throttle at $80B/mo?

They did for a while. That part's over, though.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#217

Post by conistonwater » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

acconrad wrote: post #202

rsmckinney wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Historically speaking" Historically speaking, when has the Fed kept interest rates at ZERO for 7 years? After pumping QE full throttle at $80B/mo? The economy has been in continuous "recovery" mode since '08, but not much has actually recovered. The market is going to collapse my friend because, historically speaking, we are in dark, uncharted territory and have lost our way back.

We were also in uncharted territory when the stock market collapsed in 1929. The market had never crashed like that before. The market had also never crashed like 2000 because the internet tech sector had never existed like that before. The market had also never crashed like in 2008 because home loans had never been so lax in terms of lending such highly-leveraged loans to such low quality lenders. Every new crash li…

Maybe this doesn't matter, but how did you leave out the long history of market crashes prior to 1929 [1], and how did you leave out the S&L crisis [2]? That is some really selective reading of history.

> a crash could only come about from a set of new circumstances we couldn't have predicted before (or else it wouldn't have crashed)

This claim isn't actually correct. Economic history is full of crashes and recessions where nothing new happened.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_Unit... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_stock_market_crashes_a...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#218

Post by rorykoehler » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:28 PM UTC

maratd wrote: post #88

rorykoehler wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually force someones (possibly everyones) hand. The mechanism that will drive change (either violent/non-violent) is just a matter of who blinks first.

> Capitalism at it's finest. The race to the bottom will eventually What are you going on about? If capitalism is a race to the bottom, we would have reached it a long time ago. Capitalism isn't new. It's been around for a while.

Produced goods are always getting cheaper. All trends point towards moving towards a zero marginal cost society. Economic pressures and the need to compete are forever pushing prices down. We are also getting more efficient at producing goods in parallel to this trend (another side effect of capitalism). The only way this will stop is through organized price fixing cartels.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#219

Post by cryoshon » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:29 PM UTC

jazzyk wrote: post #178

golergka wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they've drank the koolaid > the rabid ... crowd won't have the thought of weak fundamentals If you've been telling people using the same level of rhetoric and the same amount of facts as in this comment, I wouldn't be surprised if they don't listen to you, regardless of whether you're actually right or not.

It is probably out of frustration, because whatever language you use to argue something which is not supported by the mass media is rejected by most people as being 'fringe' or 'kooky' (Ron Paul being a well-known example). The public is only slowly waking up to the fact that mass media ownership has been consolidated among 5-6 major corporate/industrial conglomerates. Slowly, hence the frustration.

Yes, this is exactly it. You can use whatever technical indicators or statistics you want to create your alternative narrative, but if it isn't the MSM's narrative (which is frequently very poorly researched and extremely corrupted by outside interests) you won't be listened to because you're not "the authority" on the issue.

The media has been on the bullhorn about "the recovery" for years now, trying to make it happen by repeating that it's already happening. It's no surprise that this language rings hollow for many people; the GDP of a country and the stock valuations on an index do not necessarily mean that there is a genuinely healthy economy. These kinds of discussions never take into account labor force participation, only rarely QE, geopolitics, actual volume of consumer goods moved, actual market liquidity, etc.

Re: Stocks Off Sharply as Market Upheaval Grows

#220

Post by AnimalMuppet » Mon, Aug 24, 2015, 4:30 PM UTC

cm2187 wrote: post #155

forgetsusername wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> QE is not healthy QE is over (though, I wouldn't be shocked to see more). > 0% interest rate for several years is not healthy. Why not? > 100+ % debt:GDP ration is not healthy. Why not? I mean, I wouldn't call the US economy "flourishing" or anything. But it's not sick, and relative to the rest of the world it's looking pretty good (as the strong dollar and low rates imply).

QE is not over. The balance sheet of the Fed hasn't gone down. What is over is QE expending.

Well... what maturity bonds did the Fed buy? How long ago did they start buying them? The Fed's current plan is to let them expire. If I recall correctly, a big part of what the Fed bought was 2-3 year duration (but I could be mistaken). Some of that should have already expired; more should do so soon.