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Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

independent.co.uk

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Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#131

Post by winrid »

lawn wrote: post #125
tombert wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a pretty objectively terrible businessman. Like, that's the part that annoys me about him more than anything else, how he's convinced a lot of people that he's "good at business". He's not; if he had just dumped the money his father left him into basically any index fund between the 1970's until 2016, he would have made more money than he had in 2016. Any idiot can basically match the S&P500, just buy VOO or SPY…

He inherited billions and still manages to go bankrupt 6 times. The Apprentice was the OG reality distortion field and it's crazy people have trouble seeing through it all.

Did he personally go bankrupt 6 times or did smaller LLCs that own buildings or groups of real estate go bankrupt? Because I think the latter is par for the course if you do enough real estate.

EDIT: Just fact checking this, it's the latter, 6 entities went bankrupt. It looks like the trump organization has 500 entities, so 1.2% bankruptcy rate.

Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#132

Post by rozap »

ben_w wrote: post #116
darth_avocado wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Historic job growth means nothing if everyone needs 3 jobs to earn median household income.

Tautologically, everyone taking three jobs is what causes median hosehold income to be at that level.

Tautologically, but also pedantically.

Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#133

Post by xnx »

cj wrote: post #2

Hopefully this isn't a biased take: I think this is a unique situation because the recent moves (in my opinion) are largely a result of everyone's uncertainty around America's policies. In other words, the recent stock moves aren't because we're seeing a bunch of companies fail to miss quarterly targets. There are no major economic indicators flashing red. If stocks can drop that fast in a couple weeks, they can also…

> If stocks can drop that fast in a couple weeks, they can also (hopefully) rise just as fast,

“Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair”

Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#134

Post by jredwards »

bruce511 wrote: post #77
bdcravens wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's potentially worse, as it points to a distrust of the system, not individual companies or industries. Presumably we'll bottom out, but unless there's a dramatic change in those policies, prices will reflect the "new normal", not the previous status quo.

Stock prices are one of the economic indicators people love to point to, but they're also a pretty bad indicator of how things are going. Firstly, only a small percentage of people are directly invested. A larger group is tangentially invested (through retirement funds) but that isn't applicable in the short term. Secondly, traders (as distinct from investors) make money on volatility. So there's always short-term mo…

I think the previous poster's point goes beyond that. The argument is that the stock market is going down not because of any standard economic factors, but because of rising uncertainty about US policy.

Businesses and investors love stability. They want legal protections and regulations to be predictable. If this downturn is a result of uncertainty about policy, it won't be as easy to turn things around. Particularly if the policies continue to shift every other day.

Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#135

Post by xnx »

tombert wrote: post #114
sampton wrote: post #87

Back paddling on the tariffs without any concessions is more damaging the tariffs themselves. It shows the leadership is uninformed and the economy is very weak. Way to flash your weak hand in the first round.

He's a pretty objectively terrible businessman. Like, that's the part that annoys me about him more than anything else, how he's convinced a lot of people that he's "good at business". He's not; if he had just dumped the money his father left him into basically any index fund between the 1970's until 2016, he would have made more money than he had in 2016. Any idiot can basically match the S&P500, just buy VOO or SPY…

He doesn't realize he can't put he US in Chapter 11.

Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#136

Post by bjtitus »

noleary wrote: post #35
cj wrote: post #2

Hopefully this isn't a biased take: I think this is a unique situation because the recent moves (in my opinion) are largely a result of everyone's uncertainty around America's policies. In other words, the recent stock moves aren't because we're seeing a bunch of companies fail to miss quarterly targets. There are no major economic indicators flashing red. If stocks can drop that fast in a couple weeks, they can also…

I am not sure I agree that we lack major economic indicators flashing red. For instance, GDPNow from the Atlanta Fed looks quite bad at the moment: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow I also have been looking at deliquency rates on industrial equipment leases lately, and they seem to be trending sharply upward: https://www.fitchratings.com/structured-finance/abs/equipmen... Major retailers are also managi…

I keep seeing people post the Atlanta GDP forecast without context around the short term import imbalance.

"the January surge in imports - especially for gold - caused the model to move negative. As the Atlanta Fed noted: "the contribution of net exports to first-quarter real GDP growth fell from -0.41 percentage points to -3.70 percentage points".

Usually there would be an offsetting increase in inventories, but that is a lagging indicator. This is a short-term distortion and will balance out over the next month or so. I don't expect negative GDP in Q1." [1]

1: https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2025/03/a-comment-on-gdpn...

Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#137

Post by YZF »

stvltvs wrote: post #91
klipt wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More that, almost all companies are expected to perform worse when you elect an economically incompetent government.

What's the opposite of "a rising tide floats all boats"?

"when the tide goes out, you see who's been swimming naked" - Supposedly Warren Buffet

Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#138

Post by noleary »

bjtitus wrote: post #136
noleary wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure I agree that we lack major economic indicators flashing red. For instance, GDPNow from the Atlanta Fed looks quite bad at the moment: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow I also have been looking at deliquency rates on industrial equipment leases lately, and they seem to be trending sharply upward: https://www.fitchratings.com/structured-finance/abs/equipmen... Major retailers are also managi…

I keep seeing people post the Atlanta GDP forecast without context around the short term import imbalance. "the January surge in imports - especially for gold - caused the model to move negative. As the Atlanta Fed noted: "the contribution of net exports to first-quarter real GDP growth fell from -0.41 percentage points to -3.70 percentage points". Usually there would be an offsetting increase in inventories, but tha…

They have published 'gold-adjusted' figures which are still qualitatively quite bad. https://x.com/AtlantaFed/status/1898126061184971150

Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#139

Post by YZF »

stego-tech wrote: post #82
calvinmorrison wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so stocks are less related to individual company performance than they should be?

Stocks in the modern context are little more than speculative instruments - the equivalent of buying a blind bag of chips from a casino and betting they'll increase in value by the time you attempt to redeem them. They rarely correlate to long-term company health anymore, and often correlate to little more than the psychological state of the market at the moment of any given transaction. Remember that prices are a pr…

I don't think this is completely true. Other than some small portion of companies with weird ownership structure (which the market should have punished but doesn't always) stock ownership is ownership of the business.

There's probably a broader participation in the market (re: few people) than most of history, both direct and indirect. That can be good and bad.

There's definitely a speculative component but it's nothing like a casino.

Re: Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

#140

Post by tombert »

xnx wrote: post #135
tombert wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's a pretty objectively terrible businessman. Like, that's the part that annoys me about him more than anything else, how he's convinced a lot of people that he's "good at business". He's not; if he had just dumped the money his father left him into basically any index fund between the 1970's until 2016, he would have made more money than he had in 2016. Any idiot can basically match the S&P500, just buy VOO or SPY…

He doesn't realize he can't put he US in Chapter 11.

Yeah, apparently he's talked about "negotiating down the national debt"? [1]

How the fuck would that even work? Would he just tell all the Americans holding treasury bills that they're only going to get half of their money back? I think that would completely erode any confidence in the US economy, both domestically and internationally.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/07/us/politics/donald-trumps...

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