The stock market and economy have parted ways • Hacker News Board

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#311

Post by Ameo » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

tomp wrote: post #44

benmanns wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know how useful these are, but I found 428k+ Robinhood users hold some position in TSLA: https://robintrack.net/symbol/TSLA 50%+ is held by institutions: https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/tsla/instituti...

Probably a fake number. It seems Robin Hood is available in the US (330m population) and UK (66m population).

It's not a fake number, it comes directly from Robintrack's own public API (assuming you mean the number of people holding shares on Robinhood)

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#312

Post by thrownaway996 » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:36 PM UTC

woeirua wrote: post #216

Balgair wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... start springing up ... What do you mean 'start'? The homeless camp right next to the new Apple spaceship just got a bathroom installed: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/03/after-months-of-compl... This stuff has been going on for a few years now.

I mean, large scale tent encampments. Right now, you have relatively small encampments in some metro areas. I expect to see tens of thousands of people living in tent cities in every major metro area by October.

Why? Eviction processes in most cities take months, and if the 2008 crisis is any indication, even _then_ they'll be slow to leave. Just logistically, how do you physically evict tens of thousands of people in every major metro area in that short a period of time?

I'm not downplaying the seriousness of what's happening, as the economic impact will be catastrophic. But physically evicting large percentages of a population with no sudden increase in demand for those properties, seems like an unlikely outcome.

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#313

Post by willcipriano » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

dllthomas wrote: post #252

rwmj wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not that I'm advising anyone to get them, but what would be the counterparty risk with gold ETFs? You don't believe their guarantees that they are backed up with actual gold? eg: https://etf.invesco.com/gb/private/en/product/invesco-physic...

Even if they have the actual gold, they have the actual gold. If they decide not to give it to you, there needs to be enough of a functioning court system to remedy that; and even then it may take time - just because you have a legitimate claim to that gold doesn't mean a court can easily decide that you're the only one with a legitimate claim to that gold.

Even with a functional court system you can lose it with the stroke of a pen[0]. Physical gold however would require more effort to take from you.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_6102

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#314

Post by suzzer99 » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

marvin wrote: post #154

atlgator wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or real estate circa 2006. When your cab driver starts offering unsolicited stock tips, that's the time to get out.

Where are you getting out to? A 40% inflated money supply of US dollars?

Euros?

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#315

Post by david927 » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

devalgo wrote: post #303

david927 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By nine months it will be a debt crisis which has become a liquidity crisis which then forces a fire-sale of assets.

But most of the debt has been around for years at this point. What in the next 9 months changes that?

Debt is fine if payments can be made. What's coming is an inability to make payments.

Further, credit is tightening, so that, say, companies that have been using credit to stay alive (zombie companies) won't be able to anymore. Up until around 2003, zombie companies were no more than 2 or 3% of total companies, as you would expect. This grew to 5-6% in the 2008 crisis. But that crisis wasn't allowed to resolve naturally, so it's been continuing to grow, and now it's almost at 20% -- of all companies.* https://www.axios.com/zombie-companies-us-e2c8be18-6786-484e...

The economic contraction that we're just starting is going to set off a wave of defaults, and those defaults will beget more defaults.

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#316

Post by svachalek » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:42 PM UTC

mwfunk wrote: post #276

cephaslr wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is part of the issue that there is just too much money has been printed and hoarded and its creating some weird effects? The government has been printing money for a long time, to stimulate the economy, provide spending money, etc. Due to 80/20 rule, rich get richer effects, etc, a large portion of money the government prints ends up in the hands of a relatively small group who doesn't spend it but rather tries to in…

Have they been printing money? Has more USD been created, physically or virtually? This is something I don't understand, I'm hoping someone here can explain it. I was under the impression the last 40 years of US deficit spending has been mostly financed by selling US bonds to China, Japan, etc., while counting on growth and inflation to take the edge off when they come due. And selling more bonds instead of defaultin…

At a large scale, the question "what is money" actually gets pretty complicated. This may help:

https://www.khanacademy.org/economics-finance-domain/ap-macr...

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#317

Post by medium_burrito » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:43 PM UTC

woeirua wrote: post #216

Balgair wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ... start springing up ... What do you mean 'start'? The homeless camp right next to the new Apple spaceship just got a bathroom installed: https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/06/03/after-months-of-compl... This stuff has been going on for a few years now.

I mean, large scale tent encampments. Right now, you have relatively small encampments in some metro areas. I expect to see tens of thousands of people living in tent cities in every major metro area by October.

We're definitely there already.

At least on the west coast, in each major city, we have thousands of people living in tents, if not tens of thousands. Seattle has over 10k now officially (and speaking with food bank workers 20 years ago, they said it was that number then, when times were less shit). Los Angeles per their recent count has over 40k.

https://www.lahsa.org/news?article=726-2020-greater-los-ange...

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#318

Post by ar_lan » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:46 PM UTC

hitpointdrew wrote: post #20

> “I’m not sure what will trigger a sustained sell-off in stocks, but surging [virus] infections and another round of more business closures will be difficult for investors to ignore much longer.” An alternative place to put investments will trigger it. When your options are savings accounts paying 0.25% interest, and treasury notes paying nothing, and CD's being garbage, what are your alternatives for investing? If…

With inflation, the return is not near 0, it's negative.

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#319

Post by marketgod » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

tryptophan wrote: post #289

umvi wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mind expanding the acronyms and explaining what exactly you've done? I'm still an investing novice.

He is doing leveraged bets that the QQQ stock fund will go up a certain amount. When it goes up to that certain amount, he makes another bet it will go up again.

At the same time he is using a call spread so the upside is limited to the difference between the contract he bought and sold. Also at the same time, losses are limited.

Suppose $TWTR is $49 a share, you buy a call for $50 and sell a call for $60. Suppose the $50 call is $3 that means you paid $3. Then you sell the $60 for suppose $1. So now you are out $2. That's your max loss.

Now tomorrow $TWTR goes to $35. Everything expires and you lose $2. Suppose it goes to $300. Then your profits are ($60-50)-$2=$8 Profits Suppose it went to $55. Suppose this is after expiry, then your contract is worth $5 but you paid $3 so you made $2 profit, but you also sold 1 contract, so now you have $3 profits.

So in essence, the spread limits your upside, further limits your downside while you are bullish.

Re: The stock market and economy have parted ways

#320

Post by medium_burrito » Mon, Jul 13, 2020, 7:47 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #132

baron_harkonnen wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you are absolutely correct and the reason that the stock market is being so weird is quite simply "what else are we doing to do with that money?" The solution for individuals: cash, gold, options, etc, aren't viable solutions for institutional investors. Imagine that you're in charge of a $1 billion fund, what are you going to do? You can't put that into gold, cash or treasury notes. But all sectors are affec…

Today was one of the few times I saw "social unrest" mentioned in this context. I suspect that will happen a lot more over the next few years. The markets are a wobbling shitpile of unpayable debt just waiting to collapse. That was already true before Covid, but Covid has nailed the coffin shut while the corpse is still alive. I wouldn't be surprised if the Fed is knowingly goosing the twitching body because the alte…

An alternative to a meltdown is what's been happening since 2008- the poor start killing themselves and maybe they vote for the wrong guy, but the trend doesn't stop. Given that the market says 30% of the workers don't really matter (and remember, that's people participating in the labor market, which is at a historic low IIRC), maybe they just ignored. They can cause some level of social unrest, but the rich are mobile, and the factories are pretty automated. What we'll see soon is more private security and automated security.