The stock market thread.

[BahlDeep]

What if all retail investors and some institutional investors just decide to not "time" the market?

Wouldn't this be bad for price discovery? The market is now dictated by the few remaining hedge funds and institutions.

Follow the smart money my friend. The smart money is being put to work.

 

[Ainec]

Follow the smart money my friend. The smart money is being put to work.

Ray Dalio believed we were headed towards a crash (2019). I followed him and sold my entire portfolio in late Jan early Feb

 

[BahlDeep]

Ray Dalio believed we were headed towards a crash (2019). I followed him and sold my entire portfolio in late Jan early Feb

Again, that proves even the best of them have trouble timing the market.

Btw, most of the market believed we were going into a crash in 2019 following that awful Q4 2018, then the fed went from hiking rates to lowering them. That's why you can't time the market. Lots of variables involved which can have the market do a total 180 in a very short period of time.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

To recap - you wrote a long rebuttal to me. I wrote a long rebuttal to you. Then you say you have "better things to do", but twice state you would "shred" the argument. That's just posturing. If you can disprove my points, then do it - otherwise I'm not sure what you're trying to accomplish here.

If I were to disprove your points, you'd simply argue that I'm cherry-picking, not looking at the whole picture, demand that I make some prediction about specific events, and on and on. In short: you'd simply just keep shifting the goalposts until you got to something that couldn't be proven wrong and then proclaim you were really right on something far-removed from the original point.

As for implying that I'd never admit I'm wrong - if you can show me a viable strategy that will make me more money, I'd implement it. My incentive is exactly the same as yours - to make as much money on my investments as I can (taking the level of risk into account).

See "prove something conclusively, otherwise I'm right" above. However, let's just try "sell when the market drops 20% off a high, wait until the market goes up 20% off a bottom before buying back in." Yeah, you miss rebounds off the very bottom; you also miss some big drops off the high. You end up significantly better off than just buying and holding through all the dips.

I'll leave it to you to do the math.

Yes, I'm familiar with Hussman's article. I read it last fall. Some of the data that he provides is interesting. But the problem with it is it still doesn't tell you when to sell your stocks, or when to get back in. It just gives you some interesting metrics to consider. That's far from a practical, workable strategy.

See "prove something conclusively, otherwise I'm right" above.

By the way - if Hussman's argument is right and he really found a way to consistently beat the market - do you really think he'd give that away for free on the internet?

This is the "market is always efficient" argument that's been shattered countless times across history, but every time things are going up, up, up its proponents scream THIS TIME IS DIFFERENT!

(Now Hussman's article appears to have been "proven right" with respect to the market being over-valued in fall 2019 because of the steep drop-off that just occurred. But it seems obvious that the catalyst for the drop-off was the pandemic, and the resultant economic shutdown - something nobody could have predicted six months ago. He ended up getting the right answer, at least six months out, but it was due to an unknowable event).

Sure, it was all the pandemic's fault. Not "companies are obscenely valued while profits are stagnant, debt is increasing, companies are forking over free cash flow to pump up stock prices so that EPS looks better and better to pump up stock prices even more." Not "we're in the 11th year of a bull market now being pumped up by declining interest rates because the Fed believes the economy is simultaneously really strong and too weak to survive even 2.5% interest rates after having near-zero interest rates for nearly 7 years." Not "the bond market is signaling there's an issue as implied yields start to increase for lower-rated debt and investors are seeking safety out on the curve instead of near-term." Not "the Fed suddenly started ramping up repos for allegedly 'everything is fine, this is just a test' reasons which didn't pass the sniff test to anyone who thought more than 2 seconds about it."

No, it's that goddamn pandemic - that is the only problem. Everything else was perfect!

The pandemic was the pin that happened to prick the bubble. If it hadn't been the pandemic, it would have been something else - and, based on comments like above, you would have excused it as some freak thing and argued that everything was really fine.

All that being said - whether Hussman's strategies have led to higher returns than a buy and hold strategy is a matter of empirical evidence. Hussman has a fund (HSGFX) that has the S&P as it's long term benchmark. Let's see how it's done from 2000 to today:

So this proves my point. The person you're quoting, who set up a fund designed to track the S&P but with "a combined focus on valuation and market action", has been soundly trounced over the past two decades.

Right, let's track it all the way into a market peak where he points out valuations are at all-time highs. That's a great way to measure value. It's as bad as touting all the gains from S&P 676 to S&P 3388, totally ignoring the drop from S&P 1565 to 676, and saying "I'm up 500% over that time, I did so great! It proves everyone should always be in stocks, they never go down!"

Hussman is up front about his mistake in this. Has been repeatedly. No, we don't know what would have happened had current strategies been in place throughout this bull market. Just like we have no idea what would have happened had Congress not threatened FASB and prompted the suspension of FASB 157, which allows banks and other companies to mark assets that they don't believe the market value of to whatever they want in order to ignore the possibility that they might actually be bankrupt.

You're using the "he's been wrong, so he can't possibly be right now" fallacy. You should double-double-triple down on all such statements, instead of looking for context and trying to get the full picture. God knows I wouldn't want you and others to admit you might be wrong about what's really going on.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

And speaking of being wrong: the market is up 5.7% on the belief that

-- deaths in NYC have peaked based on one (1) day's worth of reporting that a number of sources say might not be accurate,
-- that "trend" is totally applicable to the rest of the nation, where swaths of the country are only getting started with dealing with the virus,
-- companies saying "consumers being at home will lead to more shopping" are totally right, as if ~12% of the workforce being unemployed (some estimating 20% or more) won't cause consumers to retrench spending deeply to "put food on the table" and "pay bills" and shun a lot of discretionary spending
-- stimulus checks are flowing to Americans, when in reality they're still a couple weeks at best (and in some cases, months) away from actually showing up
-- small businesses are getting loans from the stimulus programs enacted, when exactly zero loans have been approved much less disbursed and there's no clue when that program might actually start functioning
-- estimates of "only" a 3-6% drop in earnings for 2020 (based off 12/31/19 estimates) is really valid, given that 2Q will be severely impacted and effects are likely to spill over into 3Q and probably even 4Q

and on and on and on. The market can be irrational longer than everyone (including me) thinks - but if you think this is a fantastic buying opportunity, you like the market are ignoring significant downside risk.

But, buy away all you buy-and-holders. I'm sure this time, like all the other times in history, will be different - and if it's not, there will be some excuse why you were really right.

 

[Bruins4Lifer]

See "prove something conclusively, otherwise I'm right" above. However, let's just try "sell when the market drops 20% off a high, wait until the market goes up 20% off a bottom before buying back in." Yeah, you miss rebounds off the very bottom; you also miss some big drops off the high. You end up significantly better off than just buying and holding through all the dips.

I'll leave it to you to do the math.

Have you done the math?

Anyways, does that mean you might be buying back in pretty soon? The S&P 500 is very close to being up 20% from March 23rd at this moment.

 

[Ainec]

tbh I'm hoping the market continues to go up so I can load up on cheaper puts

 

[The Real JT]

I wish you well on your trades but let's agree to disagree.

I have enough knowledge regarding trading and markets to be dangerous (mainly to myself).

With that being said, I have first hand knowledge of the front lines.

It's bad and getting worse. I have no doubt it will get better in time but there most assuredly won't be an easy short term fix without an unexpected and unequivocally effective drug treatment.

In the course of the past 10 days, one of the local hospitals where I work has gone from single digit COVID positive admissions to 75 today with ventilator demand way up. We are also not one of those areas currently in the news.

I think it's only time before a major figure in the political, entertainment or sports world becomes critically ill or worse.

What do you think happens to the market if that were to happen?

Why do people listen to non-experts who say COVID is like the flu?

Boris Johnson got admitted to the hospital yesterday for "further testing". That was clearly nonsense. Those types of admissions don't happen in our era.

Now he is being moved to the ICU.

A recent UK study of 98 ICU patients with COVID who required ventilatory support showed a 66% mortality rate.

I wish him well.

Meanwhile, my hospital is now at 150 COVID positive admissions. My state, Connecticut, is never mentioned in the news.

I'm still mainly in cash.

 

[Hockey Outsider]

Have you done the math?

Anyways, does that mean you might be buying back in pretty soon? The S&P 500 is very close to being up 20% from March 23rd at this moment.

Nice observation. The S&P reached a low of 2,191.86 on March 23rd. It reached a high of 2,676.85 late this afternoon - a gain of 22.1%.

According to the previous poster's "formula" - now is the time to buy back into the market! After all, it's up 20% from a recent low. It would be interesting to hear how that gets reconciled with the qualitative factors in post #955. Do the qualitative factors take precedence (which means he concedes that his simplistic "formula" isn't all that useful)? Or do the numbers take precedence (in which case, what was the point of the commentary)?

I'll address the other comments (post #954) when I have time later on.

 

[Thucydides]

Trump also wanted to have people packed into churches by Easter .

Yeah he wants to get it rolling - everyone wants to get it rolling , but it’s not that simple. get it rolling too early and you got a major crisis on your hands, bigger than the one we have now . US is not close to reopening the economy.

Morgan Stanley and other major banks are calling for a deep recession. We are just getting started here.

I did get some cheap vanguard shares for 43 bucks a couple weeks ago. They hit 50 today. Good feeling.

 

[Jiminy Cricket]

Sideline Nerd`s absolutely Massacre`d... The AnConomy is Boomin`g,,, I`m 100% all In `n` Makin`g an Killin`g,,, Keep ritin`g angry Letter`s about how u Should never invest.

 

[Jiminy Cricket]

It would really suck to have been sitting on the sidelines with cash the last few weeks, writing angry essays and missing out on all these gains LMAO.

 

[Thucydides]

This is the timeline we are in now.

 

[Ainec]

I am extremely bearish and think we're headed towards a depression. At the same time, I think saving is a bad bet.

My portfolio right now is cash, shorts, puts, gold and crypto and I want to diversify a more.

I think getting a LOC + mortgage is a good plan, but taking other suggestions from fellow bears.

 

[The Real JT]

Long black candle yesterday.

Just sayin'.

 

[Jiminy Cricket]

Another terrible day for doomsday nerds, as they let their cash rot away while Buy `n` Hold beasts continue to strike it rich.

SET IT `N` FORGET IT

#CASHISTRASH

 

[Thucydides]

Fed announces new lending plans it says will provide $2.3 trillion in support for economy.

Feds continue to prop up the economy .

 

[Thucydides]

Another 6.6 million people file for unemployment in the USA.

this is why Powell announced the 2.3 trillion.

 

[Ainec]

trillion is the new billion

 

[Jiminy Cricket]

GAINS, GAINS, GAINS.

Another Fabulous day on the Market, `n` u won`t here a Peep out of Doomsday nerd`s.

BUT MUH UNEMPLOYMENT

BUT MUH INFLATION

BUT MUH FED

BUT MUH VIRUS

WHERE THE f*** ARE THESE NERD`S NOW. U HAD NERD`S LIDERALLY PREDICTING THAT THE SALT & PEPPER 500 WOULD GO BACK TO 1250, LMAO!!!
WHERE THE f*** ARE THESE NERD`S NOW.

I AM LITERALLY RICH.

 

[member 157595]

"Salt & Pepper 500" is up there with my favorite Cricket phrases of all time with "8 figure Salamander" and "McSalary."

 

[The Real JT]

Just listened to Mohamed El-Erian with Joe Kernan on CNBC this morning on CNBC.

Is Joe Kernan dumb as a rock or is he just drinking the Kool Aid like 90% of the CNBC hosts and guests?

As of yesterday, my hospital in CT was up to 178 patients with COVID with 39 of them intubated. We are not one of those places that are in the news.

Still bearish.

 

[Jiminy Cricket]

Just checked my local hospital and it's dead empty. You can hear a pin drop. BUY, BUY, BUY!!!

 

[The Real JT]

Just checked my local hospital and it's dead empty. You can hear a pin drop. BUY, BUY, BUY!!!

Interesting choice of words (bolded above). Freudian slip, perhaps?

Thanks for the enlightening response.

I finished my hospital stint this morning. Up to 190 inpatients today with COVID btw.

I'm back in the outpatient setting which remains remarkably quiet, so frankly I'm bored. Otherwise, I wouldn't have posted this reply.

 

[Jiminy Cricket]

Just sitting here counting my money while nerds continue to cry over imaginary doomsday scenarios. You had every opportunity to buy after a 35% crash and missed the boat. Now there's a new sheriff in town.