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Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

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871–880 of 898 posts

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#871

The explanation is very simple. The pandemic is not nearly as bad as people thought it would be in March. Models were predicting hundreds of thousands of deaths in the USA over the next few months, with lockdown. Many people were predicting hospitals would be widely overrun in New York City, parts of California, etc (again, with lockdown). These models and predictions, of course, were wrong. Printing money and stimul…

We are going to cross that 100k death toll by June, and there will be an acceleration in 2-4 weeks as we see the effects of reopening efforts on transmission rates. [1] Brooklyn funeral homes have trailers full of bodies waiting for burial. Just because it’s not happening where you can see it doesn’t mean it’s not happening. [2] 1. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/covid-forecasts/?ex_cid... 2. https://www.google.…

Some models were predicting multiple hundreds of thousands of deaths, with lockdown. The Imperial College model was predicting 1 million deaths, with lockdown. I completely agree cases will rise as places begin reopening. But whatever the outcome it will be with reopening - still better than what the market expected in March.

Yes, NYC was the only place in America where the system was close to overrun and some hospitals actually were overrun, I'm not disputing that.

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#872
post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heh I had to look up what a wedding set was. Upgrade... wedding rings? Isn’t a big part of the symbolism the permanence factor of the rings? The symbolism of upgrading the ring seems a bit unfortunate... Anyway, sorry to hear, that probably gets really old.

The stone itself is supposed to be permanent; the band and the setting (receptacle for the stone) are less weird to change.

Interesting, that seems a bit diamond-industry-marketing-driven, I thought a band was the symbol, and that the stone was a more recent invention. Especially since the wedding band is what you get when you actually get married. Many people in my family only wear the wedding bands and leave the engagement rings off.

But these are largely just assumptions on my part.

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#873

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But paying off student loans probably did. My point is that "the market did great" means investors did great; doesn't mean that everyone did great.

This thread is about investing.

This thread relates to investing, but more specifically it is debating whether or not the following fact

> The market has done even better in the last 10 years than in the 90's

is an adequate response to address the GGGGGP's claim that

> that ladder has become more difficult to climb. But hey - what do I know? I'm just a lazy millennial who's now living through his second major recession, with the first one landing directly on when I was entering the work world FT.

Nobody here is denying your claim about the market performance.

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#874
post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

and your point is what? paying a higher percentage of their income makes life harder for them, than it does for the rich paying a higher dollar value but lower percentage of total income.

The point is that infrastructure was mainly paid by the rich, not that life is easier for the poor.

the infrastructure was paid for by tax, the rich didn't altruistically pay for it, they paid tax, tax was used to fund it..very different kettle of fish to the rich paying for infrastructure directly.

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#875
post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that infrastructure was mainly paid by the rich, not that life is easier for the poor.

the infrastructure was paid for by tax, the rich didn't altruistically pay for it, they paid tax, tax was used to fund it..very different kettle of fish to the rich paying for infrastructure directly.

I never said they altruistically paid it. All I am saying is that without them, we couldn't have paid for it.

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> our infrastructure is unmaintained Bernie supporters are generally the least likely to get their hands dirty and do the kind of work necessary to build and maintain infrastructure. Pretty much everyone I meet that does that kind of work is Republican. Not saying this is a universal truth, but it's a somewhat accurate generalization. Source for party affiliation by a sampling of occupations: http://verdantlabs.com/p…

I don't respect your assertion. Not a lot of work to do when it's unfunded. Also looking through your other comments, you seem to question peoples' sources on things without providing any for your own. For posterity, the link was added after I commented and he probably downvoted me.

This is of course the big issue with infrastructure. The problem isn't the people doing the work, the problem is that they need to get paid for doing the work. Funding infrastructure is a political decision.

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#877
post #855
post #737

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That list actually does a good job comparing related professions. For example, while home builders lean Republican, architects lean Democrat. Plumbers Republican, carpenters Democrat. I don't see this support your assertion at all. Road workers or bridge builders are not listed at all.

> Road workers or bridge builders are not listed at all. If you scroll past the 1:1 comparisons and hit expand all, there's a much bigger list of occupations, many of which would fall under the "people building infrastructure" umbrella. Looking at those jobs it seems like it leans a bit right, but overall is fairly balanced.

It's certainly an interesting list to browse through. Some make sense, some are surprising, some don't make sense at all.

You'd expect most jobs to be roughly 50/50 divided between Republican and Democrat. (Actually, I'd expect a big chunk Independent. What happened to those?) Some lean so strongly to one side that it makes me wonder what's going on there.

Environmentalist strongly Dem and oil worker strongly Rep makes sense. I suppose high-paying jobs with authority like pilot leaning more Rep whereas service-oriented jobs like flight attendant leaning more Dem is also understandable.

But farmers lean Rep, but once they retire they lean Dem. Why? I'm a bit surprised to see stay-at-home moms as well as most religious professions lean strongly Dem. I mean, to me it makes sense that religious people lean left, but it often sounds like many Americans feel exactly the opposite about that. I guess I'm glad to see these stats make more sense than the news.

But in skilled trades, I absolutely don't understand the reason for the large differences. Why would a locksmith or machinist lean to strongly Rep, while sheet metal workers and cartographers lean so strongly Dem? I can't think of any good reason for that difference.

I see a lot of inspectors and rafety/regulation related professions lean somewhat Dem, but safety director leans very strongly Rep.

And what's the difference between a landscape contractor and a gardener? Or a landscaper and a garden designer? Could it be that some people choose to identify by a particular professional label based on their political leaning, rather than the other way around?

And how representative are the various groups? If you asked only 4 horticulturists, it's easy to get 3/4 of them leaning one way or the other. How many book publishers did they ask that all of them are Democrats? Surely there are also Republican book publishers?

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#878
post #875

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the infrastructure was paid for by tax, the rich didn't altruistically pay for it, they paid tax, tax was used to fund it..very different kettle of fish to the rich paying for infrastructure directly.

I never said they altruistically paid it. All I am saying is that without them, we couldn't have paid for it.

that's not necessarily true though is it. first off the government has no issue creating money to bailout corporations, thus the money could be created/borrowed to pay for infrastructure projects and repaid over the long term. Secondly 'without them' would mean without the multi-millionaires and billionaires. Well if we didn't have them it would be because of a more equal sharing of the wealth, thus the same tax revenue could be gained from a wider share of the population. The economy has the same value/size it is just currently concentrated in the hands of a few, there is no reason it could not be more equally spread out, except that those with money, get to buy those in power and lobby for rules that make them richer and make it harder for people to compete with them.

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#879
post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It tracks rare surnames, so there aren’t many distant cousins to skew the results. The point of focusing on rare surnames is so that you can be more certain that people carrying them today are actually direct descendants of people in the old records. Second thing is that the fortune is typically not tracked here, because it’s really hard to get any historical data about fortune of any individuals, much less those not…

Maybe I was unclear because I picked a generically common surname for my example, but I was also assuming both people were descended from a common successful ancestor.

The core of Clark’s argument is that the advantage is not due to accumulated fortune, but rather is genetic in nature.

Re: Why is the stock market rallying when the economy is so bad?

#880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why did it dip in the first place then? Within the first few weeks of Covid19 the circuit breakers were dripped many times, if the market is so forward looking, what happened then?

For a short time, the market envisioned the apocalypse. That’s what the media was selling, and enough market participants bought it to temporarily cause a sell-off. Also, consider that a very large percentage of market trading is algorithmic. In this sort of situation, they often amplify the panic by detecting human panic in the market and automatically selling.

I don’t get this argument though, I have shares and I don’t think the apocalypse would make me sell them, what good is all of that cash ?

The only people who should worry would be those who have all their savings in their share market, and I doubt the majority of share holders have all their money invested.

Not sure this checks out. I’d sell because I’d hope to buy once we rescued the bottom though.

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