Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

611–620 of 1001 posts

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#611

Post by oarabbus_ »

noja wrote: post #303
_se wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"They" don't do anything - this is called a circuit breaker, and is automatically triggered. There are three breakers: L1 - 7% down before 3:25pm - 15 minute halt L2 - 13% down before 3:25pm - 15 minute halt L3 - 20% down - halted for the remainder of the day Only a single L1 and a single L2 breaker can occur in a single day, e.g. the market falling below 7%, rising, then falling again will not trigger a second L1 br…

Do they have circuit breakers in the other direction?

Why would you need them?

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#612

Post by virtue3 »

magicsmoke wrote: post #141
pradn wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we can use garbage-collected languages in trading systems without turning on the garbage collector - just collect it all at the end of the trading day. I'm joking but this is a real technique.

It is, there was this HFT firm I interned at once that rebooted all their servers at the end of the trading day to make sure they would start clean and fast the next day.

That makes a lot of logical sense. Every single ms counts in those cases.

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#613

Post by buboard »

vortico wrote: post #29

Slightly unrelated, but why does the stock market close each night? If trading was open 24/7, we wouldn't have large spikes like this every morning. We'd only have them when certain news is announced.

Traders can trade 24/7 in markets around the world, as well as in crypto assets. If all trading was 24/7, what would happen probably is centralization of all trading to 1 or 2 huge exchanges.

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#614

Post by kelnos »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #390
cletus wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't think this could still be true but apparently you are correct [1]. Wow. That being said, there are factors to contribute to this: - Essentially zero population growth [2] - A government and a system that propped up an insolvent banking system that likely extended the downturn significantly [3] - A massive asset bubble that we really haven't seen the likes of, not even in the subprime era. [1]: https://www.ma…

Yep, over half of GDP growth is tied to population growth. If 2% of humanity is about to die...

Even if the fatality rate were as high as 2% (which is exceedingly unlikely), "2% of humanity is about to die" assumes that 100% of all humans will get the disease, which is unlikely.

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#615

Post by bluGill »

karlkatzke wrote: post #490
allovernow wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They discourage the regular guys from screwing themselves. If you're a little guy who believes that, say, 2019ncov is about to tear the world a new asshole, that's probably a decision you'd like to make for yourself. I don't doubt what you're saying, but it's a matter of perspective. Sometimes the "panic" is the correct reaction. We're sitting on top of a perfect storm which is shaping up to be a massive potential…

> Sometimes the "panic" is the correct reaction. Panic is almost never the correct reaction. Deciding that there's going to be a downturn and you should prepare yourself for it financially is one thing, but under what circumstances would it be optimal for you as an individual to panic-sell? In my mind, panic is the thing you do when you realize that you haven't prepared. That you don't have enough resources for an ex…

Panic sell is the correct thing when your doctor gives you a short time to live. Since your money will be worthless no matter what happens you may as well get it all now and spend it on whatever can buy a moment happiness.

There is an exception if your religion lets you take your stock with you. I don't believe in one, but I guess if you want to.

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#616

Post by throwaway34241 »

cletus wrote: post #315

So, children of summer (there are many here who have only known the longest bull market in the last century), let me give you some free advice. If you're looking at this and wondering when to get in, to bargain hunt essentially, and you're asking yourself questions like "today? next week?", you need to step back and think again. Some points to consider: - If your time horizon is 10+ years out probably none of this ma…

> If you're looking at this and wondering when to get in, to bargain hunt essentially, and you're asking yourself questions like "today? next week?", you need to step back and think again.

> Bear markets are paved with the blood of optimists.

I agree with exercising caution in the sense that trying to time the market is difficult and probably inadvisable in general, but I don't agree that people should be careful specifically because of the recent drop.

IMO the time for caution was weeks ago when the market was much nearer all time highs and it was clear the Coronavirus' growth rate was not under control (and that the measures necessary to contain it might reduce economic growth). Now is a considerably worse time to exercise caution.

People investing for the long term should probably have equities as a substantial portion of their portfolio. If someone doesn't already, I think it would be a mistake to hold back just because the market has dropped. The market may go up or down from here, but the alternative investments of cash and bonds aren't obviously better choices (and it's expected that stocks will be pricier than they were in the past if bonds return less than nothing after inflation). I think a lot of how things play out will depend on future political decisions around monetary and fiscal policy that are not realistically predictable.

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#617

Post by kristiandupont »

1121redblackgo wrote: post #365
Frost1x wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Bear markets are paved with the blood of optimists. I'm going to shamelessly borrow this.

I wonder if the inverse rings true as well. Bull markets are paved with the blood of pessimists.

Maybe "tears" works better..

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#618

Post by anm89 »

pureagave wrote: post #33
deugtniet wrote: post #2

Just to clarify the title: Trading was halted for 15 minutes.

Correct. 7% decline is a pause. If it drops 13% it will pause for another 15 minutes. If it drops 20% it will end trading for the day.

It's up what, 30 % over the last few months? The real economy didn't grow nearly that much.

In terms of real value, the only way for the economy to take that degree of a hit in a day would be a natural disaster. But these numbers are mostly speculation, so yeah they can go up and down very fast minus techinal restrictions like these halts.

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#619

Post by jfengel »

thedance wrote: post #340
zyang wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't shuffle your retirement investments based on market volatility. Best thing is just do nothing and ride it out.

This advice is both common and crazy. Each individual does not live the average life. Being able to recognize once-in-a-lifetime events, and act on them, is a rational strategy, even if it seems like it is not the optimal strategy for the perfectly spherical portfolio belonging to a person with infinite lifetime.

I'm not sure it is possible to rationally recognize once-in-a-lifetime events, since by definition you've never seen them before and don't know how they'll play out.

Re: Trading halted as U.S. stocks plummet

#620

Post by kelnos »

nostrademons wrote: post #478
jmpman wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are those 2% that are about to die the consumers which drive consumption? Maybe in healthcare, but suspect 70 and 80 year olds aren’t buying a lot of new cars.

If anything that'll prop up stock prices further. We were about to hit a demographic time bomb in the mid-2020s as the baby boomers started to retire and need to sell their 401(k)s to live on and afford medical treatment. If they all die suddenly, then their assets get passed on to their prime-working-age children, who have no need to cash them out. More savings finding their way into a dwindling supply of available…

> If they all die suddenly, then their assets get passed on to their prime-working-age children, who have no need to cash them out.

It feels morbid talking about this, but:

It depends on how the assets are passed. If most of them are in IRAs, then they'll get passed to heirs as inherited IRAs, and the new SECURE Act in the US will require the heirs to distribute the contents of those IRAs over the next 10 years, which is likely similar to how the retirees might have timed their withdrawals.

Post reply on HN