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‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

nytimes.com

171–180 of 289 posts

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US charges plenty of high tariffs in return, it's not like the US doesn't protect industries. The EU laid these on in response to Trump protecting the domestic steel and aluminum industry (notionally for national security reasons, which is a joke).

Why was there a 6% tariff on motorcycles to begin with? That tax wasn’t in response to Trump. That tax was to protect EU industry which is exactly the problem. The EU has long engaged in protectionism — when the US does the same, somehow that’s a scandal? Let’s be intellectually consistent here. All tariffs are bad except in the case of dumping.

The US has long engaged in protectionism as well - do a search for US protectionism if you think the US is somehow unfairly treated in this respect and need a list. For a long time the consensus has been that lower barriers are better for everyone, until Trump unilaterally ripped up several free trade agreements and declared (trade) war on the world.

This is a dangerous escalation from Trump which will lead to a global trade war and recession at the very least.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism_in_the_United_...

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#172
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over the long run, that is always true. Just hold and grow, until you are within 10 years of retiring. Then move to a more conservative position.

"Over the long run, that is always true. Just hold and grow, until you are within 10 years of retiring." No, it isn't. It's quite possible to lose money with a buy-and-hold strategy if you get unlucky, particularly if you aren't diversified. It's probably the most reliable way of investing, but you can still lose money. Stocks are not guaranteed to go up over all possible 50-year intervals. Monte carlo simulations of…

I really don't understand why you are being downvoted. I've been checking /r/investing for a while now and the general advice is to put all you have into the stock market (diversify) and HODL.

Everyone says there's no way the market can underperform on a longer run and you can't time it so don't bother. When someone brings back 2008 they downvote it to death and reply that it went back up so it will be all fine. When the market goes south just keep buying.

Japan would like to have a word with you.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#174
post #161

People often note, like another comment here notes: > since 1960 there has been a US economic recession once every 5 to 10 years. The last one ended in 2009, 9 years ago This is an interesting line of thinking, but I think it's a mistake. We can use this fact itself and circumscribe some meta-thinking around it. Put the same fact another way, this is arguing that the 1960's started a brand new paradigm that was mater…

So some random thoughts on the case for this time its actually different are: 1.) The internet and computing has increased the flow of information. Investments in data mining and data science by the Fed lets it make better decisions and test stuff iteratively and react to changes faster. Companies can also track inventory in a more controlled manner and not build too much too fast. Employees can find prevailing wage…

To add on to #1, the surface area of "tech" is so much larger than in the pre-mobile-phone, pre-web-2.0 (!!!) era. There should be a lot more dollars in tech than there were before 2005. There are more eco-systems to build on than ever and more consumer and business spending that follows.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently it's devolving into tariffs on everything. Like Europe's 25% tariff on Harley motorcycles. They're getting hit on both ends too because their inputs are also hit (steel being the big one). Tariff in and tariff out, it's ridiculous.

Actually the tariff is 31%. An increase of 25% over the existing 6% tariff. If Europe is so concerned about tariffs, then why did they have a 6% tariff in the first place? That’s the point of this “trade war” — countries already have tariffs. It’s disingenuous to complain about American tariffs when the EU has built their protectionist model around doing just that. France has a bunch of “protected” industries and the…

Attacking the status quo has negative consequences. Whatever the intellectual basis for that may be, there is a price to be paid.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#177
post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same, I remember how much the last one stressed out my Dad. I was in high school and didn't fully appreciate the significance of what was going on. I'm a bit anxious anticipating the next one, but it's part of the game!

As someone had a horse in the race during the previous recession, it's not some sort of "game" and I find this flippant attitude incredibly off-putting to say the least. These are people's livelihoods we're talking about here. The last recession took a huge emotional toll on me, more than can be explained using words.

> These are people's livelihoods we're talking about here.

You can leave off the 'lihood' bit and it is just as true if not more so.

Recessions kill people.

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#178
post #168
post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can't afford to lose it, you should put it in a savings account, a CD or another guaranteed asset until you've accumulated sufficient wealth that you can afford to take risks. This is investing 101. Any financial planner will tell you the same thing. Most will tell you that you shouldn't have money in the stock market if you're going to need it within the next five years. Ten years is a better number.

If your 20 you have up to 100 years worth of investing horizons to consider. Money put to retirement really is something you can lose while young. Investing in low enough to be zero yield instruments like CD's or savings accounts is terrible advice. As is treating investment savings as actual savings you can spend. Sure, keeping ~3 years income outside of the market if your actually retired is a good idea idea. But,…

"If your 20 you have up to 100 years worth of investing horizons to consider. Money put to retirement really is something you can lose while young. Investing in low enough to be zero yield instruments like CD's or savings accounts is terrible advice. As is treating investment savings as actual savings you can spend."

If you need the money in five years, you should not be putting it in the stock market. If the money is truly "put to retirement" then you don't need it in five years, and you're just agreeing with me, pedantically.

The problem is that most of these HODL folks have never lived through a downturn, and will be crapping their pants when they realize that they really were secretly counting on the money being there. I've seen it happen twice now. The forums are filled with people "buying the dips" on 1% drops, but suddenly seeing a 30% short-term correction in their portfolio causes mass hysteria. The smart players have cash on hand, and are ready to buy -- precisely because they didn't "buy the dips".

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#179
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much every finance site - marketwatch, wsj, cnbc, bloomberg, zerohedge, etc along with the peter schiffs/etc clickbait it. For some reason, nytimes paywalled clickbait is constantly spammed here. The inverted yield curve. There are thousands of articles about the inverted yield curve. The death cross. The black swan event. All just voodoo clickbait nonsense. Also, I love how the nytimes say "wall st is concern…

I’m impressed by your post’s combination of cynicism and conspiracy-theory-type reasoning, compounded by the agency fallacy.

Your Pavlovially conditioned denigration of quite believable assumption that some entities have huge amount of influence on the economy is even more impressive. Never tired of employing good old "it's a conspiracy theory" conversation stopper, do you?

Re: ‘A Powerful Signal of Recessions’ Has Wall Street’s Attention

#180
post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Over the long run, that is always true. Just hold and grow, until you are within 10 years of retiring." No, it isn't. It's quite possible to lose money with a buy-and-hold strategy if you get unlucky, particularly if you aren't diversified. It's probably the most reliable way of investing, but you can still lose money. Stocks are not guaranteed to go up over all possible 50-year intervals. Monte carlo simulations of…

I really don't understand why you are being downvoted. I've been checking /r/investing for a while now and the general advice is to put all you have into the stock market (diversify) and HODL. Everyone says there's no way the market can underperform on a longer run and you can't time it so don't bother. When someone brings back 2008 they downvote it to death and reply that it went back up so it will be all fine. When…

"Japan would like to have a word with you."

Indeed. But more prosaically, many of these HODL types are discounting how much they'll actually freak out at a market correction. They've never seen a 30% drop, or lived through a five-year correction (let alone an extreme situation, like Japan). Even if you have the stomach to handle the drop, things happen on a five-year horizon that people don't consider: extended unemployment (which tends to happen during recessions), children, houses, etc.

I made that comment thinking it would be a completely uncontroversial statement of fact. It's amazing to me that I'm getting downvoted, as if I've expressed an opinion of some kind.

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