It's hard to say where the bottom is going to be. Market is reacting COVID19 and not because of some structural failure - sub-prime loans, junk bonds, etc. China has absolute huge swathes of its population under quarantine and factories are sitting idle. Was just a matter of time before that rippled across global markets. If the infection rate gets under control and the Israelis (or Australians, or Chinese) get that vaccine put together quickly, who knows?

Looking like we will see some more virus cases popping up over the weekend. Certainly not the best news but also kind of expected to see that over the next week or two. The good thing is that, here in the US, you are NOT seeing a high mortality rate with those infected. I would love to see a patient demographic study on those in the US. Is it mainly people with weaker immune systems? Is it mainly younger people, older people or what?


I personally think we have another 10-20% of downward free fall.....IF.....more cases start coming up next week. The real downside will come...IF.....clusters start breaking out and people start dying off in large numbers. HOWEVER....from what we have seen so far. The mortality rate here in the US is zero, so far. If that continues for the next 2-3 weeks I think we move right back up the stairway.

Which specific stockS have taken the biggest hits ?

Some might totally LOSE that specific business like travel or cruise lines OR dining out ... but bigger ticket items like appliances or phones or cars might be delayed

Panic Panic Panic, as of right not for everyone here posting the odds of getting and dying from this is about the same as a great white attacking you while walking in DT Nashville, unless you buy into the sharknado B movie series.

I don’t know that finding the stock down the most is the key. The key is to find the best companies at a discounted price. Take cruise lines for instance. They suffered a beating this week (but I think they bounced today). However I would take Visa or Mastercard over any cruise line, at about any price. I think like....what is something that people use or depend on all the time that they can’t do without. If I buy Visa or Mastercard....I don’t have to worry about where people shop, eat, what brand of company they travel with....as long as they use their credit card. It doesn’t matter if they buy in a store or online....as long as they use a card.

That is why I buy VISA, local utility companies like electric and gas companies. People can’t do without those. Doesn’t matter if a virus or war or good times or bad times....people will need/use those.....

If it were not for a virus....I would add AAPL, AMZN and Goog to those. However I personally feel that aapl and amzn are likely to suffer deeper loses over the next few quarters because of the China exposure they have. Goog has some other pending litigation issues that could set the stock back if it is not a favorable outcome. If the stock has already taken a beating a large settlement could cause the stock to lose support here at/near a critical level.

Also here is useful site to keep up with the total number of virus cases, in case anyone cares.

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6



Not sure how accurate that tracker is. That site shows 64 confirmed cases in the USA, which includes the cruise passengers and citizens flown back to the US military bases for quarantine/treatment. However the official CDC
numbers of true confirmed cases is 15. I tend to believe the CDC over the tracker.

Here is a Emergency Room director talking about that is like a MILD flu. A very large portion of people that contract the virus, will be able to fight it off. However people with weakend immune systems, COPD, diabetics and respiratory issues are the one most likely to contract a dead form of the virus. Basically their weakend immune systems cause pneumonia to set in.
https://www.fox4news.com/news/er-di...ike-mild-form-of-the-flu-for-most-people

I am staying pat, no panic.... YET

I was forced to retire in Dec 2016. So I can not buy any shares in my IRA or Roth IRA. Otherwise I'd take my $130,000 in a 3% annuity and just buy some IRA shares. My funds are down $2.20 a share. I know I have lost $75,000+ in face value just since Monday. But I will let it ride.

The only PANIC thing I did was stop my March 1st monthly $3500 auto draw off my traditional IRA as I do have my military retirement check, my VA disability check, and my SS oldfart check. The $3500 goes mostly on my Mortgage Principal only. I can skip a month. Bought 12 years ago at $350K. Is valued at $735K but owe $147K due to paying extra principal. With a $24,800 Standard Deduction, having Mortgage interest and property tax deduction does not make enough over that $24,800 standard.

But if you are over 70 1/2 years old you MUST be taking a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) or the IRS will hit you with a 50% of the RMD as a fine. So you must be selling shares at this low time. Hope you can time it right without getting fined.

Finished the week down about $135k overall. I'm 48, so I'm not nearing retirement, which is why I'm invested more aggressively. I'm not about to sell and turn a paper loss into a real loss. I hope those who chose to sell are able to recover. It will be a steep hill to climb.

Not directed at any one individual. but this reminds me so much of the banter here in 08.

I rode that one down to the bottom, won't do that again. Took eight years to recover those losses.

Normal fees. It's just moving money around in a 401K.

No I mean after dropping 3500 points and selling after the drop you took a paper loss and turned it into a real loss. Sure I lost money on paper most of the week but Friday I was back up 575.00. Not bad for another market down day.

The original idea of a
“Hedge Fund”
was that in addition to
buying stocks hoping for rising prices,
the Hedge Fund managers would also buy
futures contracts/puts/calls as “insurance” or “hedges” against falling prices.

By balancing these two ideas
the large number of Hedge Fund customers
were to gain something like 3% less yield than the total market long term yield,
but 90% of the time never have a loss.

This present drop of less than 4000 points on the DJI from 28,000
is just a bit more than a common place “correction”
but are there any Hedge Funds that have used the original idea to at least stay at zero loss?

For comparison
the average yield of large USA pension fund managers over the last fifty years has been about
6% above the inflation rate.

Yes, but what was the cause of the last one?

The key is to buy on the way down.....and the way up! Dollar cost average investing has never, not worked in the history of the stock market. The part that screwed me was we used several money management firms in the early part of our investing. They were losing money in up years of the market. Once I took over the account and bought high quality stocks...we started making huge gains. The money management companies fees were more than our gains when they had us in mutual funds and target date funds.

True or not.... you can't go thru life like this:

Interesting, I usually wait till I think we are past the free fall. (I was once advised never to try and catch a falling knife.) But your idea makes sense, so you are not too late on the reversal.

I was once advised never to try and catch a falling knife.

Would you if it were falling toward the top of your bare foot?

When my Brother in law was about 55, he had his whole retirement in xerox, he worked there his whole career. Lots of $$ built up when the stock was at $150. Then it crashed. He rode it down. When it was at about half, of what it was he bought more, all he could afford. then it went all the way down under $10. He was wiped out. He worked well into his 70's before retiring. Now, 20 years later, Xerox has never recovered. THere is no guarantee that if you ride your stocks down that they will ever recover.
I paid attention. I'm 60, I want to retire before I turn 75. If I see trouble, I'm getting on the sidelines fast. I don't lose anything by taking a profit and sitting out. I lose POTENTIAL profit, but I also shield myself from potential loss.