who is bailing on stocks?

I don't know how deep of a plunge the market is going to take, but I'm not planning to ride it to the bottom. What do you guys think?

Buy high, sell low is not a winning formula.

Didn't sell in Oct 1987, didn't sell in 1999/2000, didn't sell in 2008/2009 and not selling in 2020. History tells us that those that continue to buy and hold, and not try to time the market will be richly rewarded.

No reason to bail.Especially with the right stocks. I like slow and steady.

Good time to buy.

What goes down must go up.

Kevin

I'm sitting tight. In fact, I've discussed buying more stock with my financial adviser now that the prices are depressed.

All of mine is in the power company that I work for. It's dropped a little the last few days....but not like a rock, as other type stocks have. Besides that, I'm collecting and reinvesting a boat load of dividends every quarter.....and ain't giving up that much money by jumping out into some safe fund.

I bet I own some of that power company stock (DUK?). I was just telling a coworker today why are people selling a utility company, could there be an industry less affected by a pandemic in China that might spread here? Maybe I should buy more.
I’ve been putting off investing much of my 2019 Roth contribution and I am now really glad about that, but will need to swallow hard before getting that done before April 15. I also closed out an International stock fund last fall to pay off what was left of my mortgage.
So those two things give me some comfort dealing with the carnage this week and tens of thousands of dollars paper losses I’ve had. But I’ll hang tight and things will recover some day. I focus on companies that pay decent dividends so if nothing else, I’m getting paid while I wait!

Yep....it's Duk. Most of us that are old, and hostages from other power companies they bought out spell it Dook! Utilities are usually a safe haven in stocks when

Nope not bailing at all. I bought quite a bit yesterday....

V (largest position)
XEL ...local electric company
ATO ...local gas company
GOOG
SPY
SDGR (my speculation holding)

Plan to add
AMZN
KO
MO (waiting for $38)

Will be adding,

Amazon
Apple
Msft
Samsung
Some of the stuff that got hit hard but nobody can live without these days.

It's falling fast. I'll wait till I see a bottom develop before getting back in.

I am still about 35% cash. I am not looking to find the exact bottom but I hope to get close. I loaded up on Christmas Eve 2018 because it seemed like full scale panic and blood in the streets. I made the mistake of peeling off all of it way to early and missed most of the run up. I still had my best year ever in 2019 because I loaded up that day. This time I am just buying good companies and going to let it ride. I would normally buy AAPL and AMZN but I think the China connection is going to have a longer effect on both of those. I will wait to add those until after earnings (aapl especially)...because I feel it will really take a hit with the China factories and store closures.

I am in no hurry, might even buy some facebook. I got in this current market when the dow hit 6666, not the bottom but close. If I don't get in this time its no big deal, but watching. My managed accounts have been selling stuff off out the ying yang the last few days, so the pros are bailing, and telling you to stay and hold on the tv, like they always do.

Just going to ride it out. It always comes back.

SO.CO here love those quarterly payments. The only time price seems to matter is when you buy or when you sell everything else is just back ground noise. LOL

You were considering bailing, and now you're going to try to time the bounce? Now is the time to buy. You're already buying at a discount right now. Plenty of $$ to be made right now.

I'm down about $130k across our investment accounts,and if were weren't already maxed out on my 401k and our Roths, I'd be increasing my contributions. I'm going to up the contributions to our 529 plans instead, because there is no contribution limit on those. My wife doesn't have a 401k, since she is a public school teacher. She has a pension, and also an annuity that earns about 4%, and it drives me nuts to see it sit there and make almost nothing, even though it's insulated from downturns like this.

Currencies?

Is the USA dollar going to go up or down
relative to the paper money issued by other countries?

Red Chinese Yuan +/-

Taiwan +/-

Iranian Rial +/-

Canadian dollar?

Buy when others are emotionally fearful
Sell when others are emotionally greedy
... does that apply to paper money?

Wait a week and buy not sell...

Panicking is never good financial advice.

Dont bail, keep thinking half of people are selling and there are half that are buying. There is two sides to the equation.

Not selling and planning to buy when it looks like certain stocks have hit the bottom on this swing.

I learned WAY too late in life (57 now) that the world doesn't come to an end in hard times. I'm probably getting BACK into the market, on a dollar cost averaging basis. Actually during the last downturn I got a NICE 5000 industrial building for $100k. They are going for $300k and up. 10,000ft buildings are around a million now. Secretly hoping for a slowdown since everything I own is paid for; house, building, vehicles, etc.We all knew this was coming.

It's not looking good for us guys that are ready to retire...

yep, that's the tough spot. the people that are about to retire and watching their investments plunge. sure all the value will come back by staying in (not selling and locking in those losses)...but it might take a few years.

last year i was happy with my return in my 401k and i rebalanced heavily in bonds, missed on some earnings since but all that has been retracted now. waiting for the bottom and then everything back into the aggressive funds...probably bump my contributions up significantly too.

I just got done moving some things around,hopefully for the better...This virus scare reminds me of the show on tv a while back..."The last ship" Where is the USS Nathan James?

The term 'scare' seems to be the operative word. I know a couple of MD's and they indicate that this is WAY overblown. Just the fact that the number of people that are infected with common flu and have died from it versus the number with this latest virus..not even close. For that matter, it is estimated that 280K+ die in the US EVERY YEAR from obesity. So, order up those Whoppers for lunch.

the reason the markets are falling is not because of how deadly the virus is, but because it is so contagious and it is spreading all over the world and completely disrupting normalities. spending is going to retract (businesses worldwide have already stopped flying people for events), people are going cancel vacations, people won't want to fly, they will quit going out as much...consumer spending is going to drop.
also, china was basically idle for what? a few months? production worldwide is going to fall, this could be a worldwide recession.

Anyone scared about the stock market dip should take this advice, if not stand pat. Famous last words, of course.

Fear sells newspapers and generates clicks, that is all...

all going to die

I sold all my stocks on Wednesday and my mutual funds on Thursday. I look at it as profit-taking while the profit is still there. Sure I gave up something by not selling at the exact peak. But that's usually not possible. I don't normally try to time the market, that's pretty difficult to do. I'm in it for long-term appreciation, and dividends. I use dollar cost averaging which to some extent takes advantage of the corrections that are bound to happen. But this dip scares me. I want to be safe against getting wiped out if this is the big one. I'm old now, I don't have 10 or 20 years to recover.

I bought 1000 shares of SDRL at .94 this morning and it’s at 1.07 now. I should sell and buy some New Balance tennis shoes.

I am not in stock market. I have excellent retirement, some cash, and recently put money in a CD since the rates rebounded a little. I have a pretty good chunk at 2.85% which is pretty good compared compared to about five years ago. I'm playing it safe.

However, I have to agree with others; considering the main cause of the dip in the market, I would NOT be considering bailing now. First, I would expect it to bottom out very soon, and second, I would expect a rebound very soon.

The SP 500 is still over 2900 it was just overbought and will probably be over 3000 at the end of the year. A 10-15 % correction isn't uncommon it's just now since the point loss is high people get scared and the percentage isn't terrible. I put in low limit orders in that hit this week so I ended up buying $45,000 more @ sale prices and still have some too low that might not ever get filled. Kinda like low balling a car dealer bid low and see if they get desperate enough to sell. Limit orders can be good for 60 days It doesn't cost anything if your price is too low to buy (no sale) but if you get it at a price you're willing to pay great. Look at the move today you can't time that. They're not going to let this market crash in an election year.

History shows if you sell by the time you feel safe enough to buy again you will be buying it higher than you sold it for.

Mike

October 2018 was bad, I lost approximately 117,000 in my 401k. By March I was back up and then some. I know it's been a rapid decline, but stay the course. I'm sorry for those who will retire soon are taking a beating, but you should stay in for the long haul.

I moved 75% of my 401K holdings into a stable value fund today, but will continue to buy along with a company match. I'll be back in when all of this overblown hype is over with. 2019 was my best year ever.

How much did that move cost you. Damn.

My small orchard of apples went down many MANY cHeEzY burghers ...

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.

That is why one has to be diversified. It is one thing be all in on an electric company that you work for. But to be all in on a consumer goods company (technology company), is risky the longer it goes. Technology evolved and they didn’t. If that person bought even half of their retirement in the S&P500, they would have been way way ahead.



A side note for anyone that cares to read. This is an article written by one of the Diamond Princess cruise passengers that contracted the virus.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/02/28/i-have-coronavirus-so-far-it-isnt-that-bad/

Sounds like your doing whats smart for you in your situation. Its true, not everyone wins. Ive some family members way up in age, and they dumped some, cant blame them.

My comment about the foot was only because ive heard that before and recall the day as a child my dad dropped a knife and it stuck in the top of his foot and when he pulled it out, ect.

I completed the transactions just before closing on Friday, so I captured those gains also. It's still a paper loss for me too, because I can move my holdings back into the previous funds when this panic nonsense stops. The only real loss would be if the market rises above what I sold at on Friday. It's a gamble that I'm willing to take and I'm actually protecting the 22% gains of last year while risking the approximate 10% gains for the first two months of this year.

If your time frame is super short. I can see taking money out. However if you are 3-5-7 years or more out. Talking with a broker about buying downside protection (leaps/puts), could have helped calm the nerves. You could have protected your core holding against any big move down.

The crash of the financial sector, Investment firm bankruptcies......bad times.

I do the same thing as you with my money, same age, can't take a big loss, I rode it down after 9-11, never again. I noticed all the pro investors sold back then while going on tv telling everyone to stay, even the president at the time said, it will all be fine, it was not. In my defense the market was closed and I couldn't trade, pros cleaned our clocks. I sell now lose some profit but can always rebuy at least a little lower. I try to buy big name dividend paying stocks. After the 2008 crash I quadrupled my money, sold the day I knew the political party was changing, bought at 6666, it went down more. The batch of 10 stocks I had at 9-11 did finally get back to even, but is down about 30% now, I track it just to know I did the right thing. My iras are in managed accounts, and I have gotten 30 alerts this week of them selling and rebuying, so it appears bailing is the right thing to do. The pro runs the market, you will never beat them head to head, but with cash and proper timing, you can get a good piece of the action. That is the only thing that works for me. It is hard not to go after tbe latest whiz-bang stock, but you learn. My plan to buy amazon, apple, facebook, samsung is only based on the fact everyone is hooked on that stuff, hard to lose if you buy near the bottom, like within 1000-2000 points, and I need the diversity.

In my opinion the 2008 crash was caused by a lot of things, but the main thing in the end was the change from a pro business administration to an administration that promised to go after business, and was negative towards them. That is when it really went down the drain. I can tell you the exact day I sold, why, and what was said, but politics are not allowed here. It may be happening again this year, I am for the most part in cash right now, and may stay that way until I am sure who is going to win.

Then there is the IRS... Don't forget the IRS. They will not forget about you and your money.
Say you have $1,000,000 in your IRA. You panic and decide to cash it out. You will write a check to the IRS for $350,000 or more depending on your income bracket...

Most 401k and Traditional IRA's you can move money around inside the account but not take it out.

Roth accounts have a bit different rules but there may be limits.

Some financial firms have Money Market accounts where you can sell off Mutual Funds shares and put them in the ultra conservative MM fund as a holding. They do gain and loose a small amount but not as volatile as the main stream Mutual Funds. But this may effect your dividend payouts.

Yes the IRS...that is why our iras are managed, I can't pull them out without tax issues, and by the time I could figure out what to do it is too late. They have done alright and they have been actively moving them around inside their portfolio this week so we will see. I fully fund them jan 1 every year, but waited this year for some reason, just a bad feeling so that may work out too, have to fund by april 15, need the tax write off.

I'll bet if Warren Buffett isn't on a stock shopping spree, he will be shortly.

Kevin

Yes. A month ago he had his biggest cash hoard ever waiting to buy
“a good company with excellent management already in place”
when their stock Price dropped to bargain levels.

I kinda expect him to buy an east coast railroad to make BN into a truly national line.

Attempted to move my stash from aggressive growth to a money market Thursday evening when year to date was only down .4%.
I knew Friday’s losses were coming so now it’s only down 5% ytd.
Bad news is the highly rated company has not posted the trade and I’m assuming free fall again on Monday. Hopefully they post the trade before the market opens then. The plan is to jump back aggressive towards the bottom!
TY
Red

The money was never taxed so yes you have to pay taxes for n it when you withdraw it. Plus don’t forget the extra 10% if you are under 59 years of age. But there are a few ways to work around that part.

Yes I understand the no tax on the ira going in, I am not a big fan of them mainly because congress can change the taxation rules on them at any time. But, it is just part of a plan. For most people it is a forced savings plan, so kinda good in that respect. I guess when I am 70 we will know what worked best. I am not telling anyone what to do but sell and rebuy the same good old dividend paying stocks has been the best for me. I am pretty much thinking be in cash for elections now, at least at my age. I used to believe the buy and hold forever bs but feel the market has changed too much with electronic trading for that to work. I also feel the buy and hold advice is only given to get you to leave your money on the table while the pro takes it, but thats just me, I could be wrong and often. Happy trading.

Not meaning to kick a guy when he is down but not diversifying OR not buying companies that are diversified can be dangerous. Think BlackBerry. A diversified portfolio can withstand a lot of blows but there is no denying that a major correction would not be good. My grandfather was caught in the crash of 1929 and lost all of his investments. That's why my mother and her two sisters never went to college. I think it is interesting that according to Wikipedia, the '29 stock market crash lost the equivalent of $396 billion today. Business Insider claims the current drop erased $6 trillion in wealth. Amazing how the market has grown ASSUMING that all figures are accurate.

Tell us the exact day, we can draw our conclusions.

Never put all your eggs in one basket. Meaning never have more than 10% of your money in any one stock. The SP 500 is right now just 2% over it's Jan. 2018 high. The 20% profit people have is only if they invested that money after the 20% Dec. 2018 fall any money invested before that correction is 2% or less return. Jan.2019 was 20% lower than the 2018 high.

2018 high 2930 2019 open 2510 low 2447 high 3240 2020 low 2954 So it just comes down to when you invested.



https://www.macrotrends.net/2526/sp-500-historical-annual-returns

After numerous large market declines,
what happened 1, 3 and 5 years later

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/o...ggests-this-approach-pays-off-2020-03-01

Oct 13 2008

He has been purchasing a large amount of stock for awhile not surprisingly his own BRKB

We thought for a while after Peter Lewis passed away that Buffet would make a run at buying us in order to consolidate Geico and Progressive to knock State Farm out of the #1 spot in auto insurance, but it never materialized. I'm glad it didn't.

I am sure glad I was buying as the market was crashing! Although I am still down from my 52 week high. I by far had the best day ever in my account. I sold some off right at the end of the day. I had gone about 90% long (with almost all of that in Visa. I had bought quite a bit from180-188 and sold all of those shares today for a really nice gain. I didn’t get in at the bottom but that is fine. I wanted to capture some quick profits in case the market retests those lows. Back to about 50% cash and we will see how the next few days go.

Yeah with last weeks loss of over $75,000+ todays slight rebound gave back $38,000 or so. Just $0.36 a share gain.

Made a good sized chunk back yesterday.

The guys that bailed out sure didn’t.

What brokerage accounts are people using? I've been thinking of doing some more active trading than my 401K and IRA, which I haven't touched.

I keep missing out since I haven't opened an account yet and I'm holding cash. The prices are still pretty high for many stocks, but there were some really good buying opportunities in the last week and it's possible things will be volatile for a while. Oil was at its lowest point in several years but made some gains yesterday. OPEC meets Thursday and Friday so there may be more gains.

I use TD Ameritrade. No commission equity trades. Works great and super easy to use. Took about 20 minutes to set up the account.

Market "corrections" are a great buying opportunity. Everyone panics, price drops and then we buy! I got one at 45.00/share discount!

I use Schwab no fees. BGS foods low was $12.78 Feb. 25. now $ 16.25 only a little over 27% return in a few days and the dividend is 11.73%. Owns green giant veg. A little risky Thou.

I posted on this on Sunday evening and that post is not here, I sent a E mail to Tom about this and no reply as of this morning.
MODS, what was wrong with my post?
Something is terribly wrong on here, I fear

Was it a second post on the same subject. If so that may be why.

Cab....Your post turned political...

I use Etrade, no commission on equity trades, never have had any problems with executions. Mondys dead cat bounce was pretty predictable, but I'm not savy enuff, nor can I devote the time now to day trade short term moves. Wish I could!

These wild swings in the market are not good for my core positions, but the trading side is really good right now! I sold a lot of Visa yesterday above 192 and bought a lot of them back today at 185.60

and wow, a fed rate cut and the market is still sliding down...

...and they can't really cut rates much more. Back in '08 the rates were much higher when the economic downturn began.

Decided to dig in to that one a bit. Would not be surprised if they cut the dividend (and blame it on the virus situation). Anytime I see a dividend over 8%....raises a red flag. Then looking at the stock chart. It sure doesn’t look great on a 5 year chart. Been steadily going down hill.

How?
PM me with more details please.

Idiotic cut and not good monetary policy, but that never stopped the Federal Reserve from doing stupid stuff. These type of cuts are usually NEVER good for the markets. Fed Reserve has zero credibility and is nothing more than a puppet to prop up the markets. Keep that easing going, at some point it implodes. IMO, this mess isn't close to over.

A couple traders and I spoke sunday ervening, we all called the move in the market and the fade. The cut got the same response as the late cycle round of china trade tweets. Gave back most of the gains from Monday. My guess most of mondays run was anticipatory to the rate cut.

i agree the rate cut was rather dumb.

the problem isn't lack of or access to $$$. the problem is the sickness will dry up the supply chain, causing shortages that will throw a wrench in the gears of progress that $$$ can't fix.

Agreed. A token gesture to appease the uninformed and ignorant, nothing more.

It also sends a message that the Dow Jones is more important then the emergency room, if you are sick.

Kinda like the cable company reducing late fees if you are an infected area?

It is beat up and just on Feb 24 they kept the dividend for shares held owned thru 3-21-2020. Never know for sure but they seem to be dedicated to keep it. Just bough veggie brand.

Here's a couple more I'm trying to get some more of but so far they haven't come down. Slack tech. symbol WORK bought @ $20 in Jan. just not enough Lol And store capital symbol STOR trying to get more around $31 which would be around 10% lower.

Hope to see the real fear selling & panic kick in and drive the SP down to around 2480-2500 will be a 20% off sale. Be patient!

And it’s up over 1,000 points now....

Closed up 1173 at 27,090, Nasdaq up 334 to 9018. The news says Biden, I would say the feds move yesterday had something to do with it. As long as housing stays strong, no worries. Housing and the economy are what to watch, not building or selling omes, market goes to safe harbors.

These wild swings are crazy.....but good for trading!!! Back to 50% cash after selling Visa again today. Buying low and selling high....

So for a week we have told the market decline was due to a coming virus and its effect on business.

Now yesterdays rocket recovery is based the surprising results of one candidate in the polls who supports health/insurance market status quo.

Nobody should be deluded into thinking who the market is really looking out for.

Another big down day opening coming today. At least that’s what the premarket are showing

it's going to quite volatile for a while to come.
cruise ship off of california is parked offshore with virus cases on board and a death from the virus in Cali that is related to that cruise ship...(also, we are not even sure the CDC has accurate tests for the virus)
airline revenues are way down, the virus is spreading pretty quick, no telling how much this is going to affect the economy.

I personally think that this is a 3-4 month issue. Similar to a flu season. I may be way off but what other similar issue has been a long term discussion? We have had bird flu, swine flu and West Nile virus. All of those were panic situations that lasted a few months and then the fear subsided.

I bought some of my Visa shares back today at 187.10. Would like to get more under 185 and will load up more under 180 and go all in at 173.50 with a stop loss (completely exit) at 171.87.

I got out and went to cash and back into CD on Monday, I had stated that on my post that got scrub.
I had 10% loss as my get out cut off #, now I'll wait for 90 days and see what happens and decide then to get back in or stay out some more.
I hope all on here haven't got hurt to bad

But there is now one great difference, but no one here is allowed to discuss it, just sayin.

I would rather invest in myself than stocks, I can buy a truck with a blown up engine at the auction for say $5000, stick in an engine for $2500 and sell the same truck for $12,000 so that's where my money goes. Average time for me to flip one is less than 6 months, the more cars I buy the more I have on the lot the more money I make, can't make those kinds of returns in the stock market on a regular basis.

That's great, I love flipping stuff for a buck as well. But that's work/business, not investing. Investing is using your capital to make money off of other people's work.

If you're doing that for spending/hobby cash, that's great. If you're doing that as a long term financial plan, you'll have to work at least 3 years after you die before you can retire.

Looks like you got more if you had a limit order today's low so far is $180.20

Yep...got a few more shares this morning.

I'm still on the side line, but will take a very small position in MORL if it gets under 12.25 again. Just for fun.

Joel it was down as low as $12.19 today

well, I'm on this bucking bronco of a fund, my limit order hit at 12.30 for MORL. Very volatile, + pays huge dividends. I won't surprise me if it gets back into the upper 11's. Then hopefully will take a run up, but who knows? My retirement is is still on the sideline, this is just with fun money to see if I can make a good play.

In theory anyhow, I will have a nice sized car lot and auto repair buisness here to sell come time to retire if I keep re-investing and building it up. Or let one of my employees or sons keep running it for me after retirement.

Long bumpy road ahead.

Back to about 50% cash....sold right before closing... almost predictable right now.

I checked my account and my YTD is down 3.9% 1 month is down 5%, 6 months even and 1 year up 5%. The loss in dollars is painful to see but there is no way the market should have been that high in the first place but it's been like that for years and trying to call a top was a bad investment and would have cost a lot more. I'm also 50% cash and would not be surprised to see a couple of 2,000 down days when the margin calls and options come due.

Dang Joel for a guy that says he was scared you sure picked a risky investment. Lol

Big short covering rally into close on Friday.

IMO, there is more downside as there has not been that capitulating sell activity. Probably going to see some big swings either direction with the trend down for a bit longer. Also when the slope of "new" infections chart levels off, that's when things will go back to normal and the idiot monetary policy will ramp again. Get ready for zero or negative rates.

When the virus thing is out of the headlines, any of the delayed activity will likely ramp into the next few quarters. As long as businesses can stay afloat with limited inventory. When you place so much of your economy and manufacturing in one location, you get risk of severe shock when the peasants can't go to work!!!

People just didn't want to be long through the weekend in case the Government came out with another bailout or if the news got worse. It will really get interesting when options expire at the end of the month which also is the end of the first quarter.

The 10-year Treasury yield broke below the 0.5% mark for the first time ever earlier today. It's going to be a bumpy week for the market.

Check out the oil futures after Russia told opec to take a hike

Crude was as low as 27.30ish tonight.


Crude is the most manipulated market traded. What one or two players can do to it. Lovely.

Still trying to figure out why the fed lowered the rate... took all the fixed income people out of the market. That will only slow the recovery as ma and pa kettle millionaire will just quit spending. Just the dumbest move. Hate to hope for bad but stocks at half to a third of the price and a ranch house with some land cheap would be perfect for me right now. Anyway, good luck today in the market, never thought I would see oil that low, have to learn to never say never.

The first circuit breaker has been triggered.

For several years now I put in some really low buy orders I think would never fill and 6 of the 10 orders hit in the panic this morning. What is surprising is the flush happened so fast they had to fill 3 of my orders for less than I bid. All 6 are up now.

It's getting so pathetic right now in the stock market even I would get in if I had cash laying around, I would also buy oil stocks, the big players will not let this low price linger very long at all.

As much as I want to....not trading anything today. Going to let the next few days and week find a direction. I did add some small orders to my retirement account. Basically took my monthly contribution for month and deployed those early in case we get a bounce before the end of the month. May do the same thing later in the month if we are still down and consider that my April contribution.

Man Caterpillar {CAT} looks tempting down to June 2017 low and yields almost 4 %. 13% lower today @ $105.32 might be time to place a buy with half @ $100 & half @ $95???


Wow MORL is down over 14.5% today! That's a Jan. 2016 low

Russia is trying to bankrupt US fracking companies so it can control the oil market.

They tried that a few years ago, good old fashioned american ingenuity kicked in and we fingered out how to do it even cheaper.

Last week I read a paper about a HUGE deposit had been discovered in West Texas, but now I can't find the link. It was a pretty dry read, but the gist was it was going to be reduce the demand for shale deposits to be accessed.

This whole stock market thig is crazy right now. I learned that some BIG player got destroyed Friday on the VIX. Caught in Gamma Squeeze put them in a "We're ruined Mortimer!" situation.

All things considered.......I'm glad that I bailed out when I did.

Have you thought about trying to find an entry point to get back in if/when your target gets hit? If you like your companies and they are solid, they will most likely rebound since this “panic” is not a financial issues as much as it is a fear driven campaign.

ME TOO!

I agree with you that in times like these, stock prices are driven more by people's fear then the actual value of the stock. But when stocks get driven to ridiculously high P/E ratios that make no sense whatsoever financially, emotion is driving the market as well. I don't have a plan of exactly how and when I'm going to put my retirement money back into the market. I'd rather be a little late and miss a little bit of opportunity than to be early and lose a big chunk of my principal. I'll just have to watch and be convinced that a bottom has formed and an uptrend has started.

I jumped into that too early. It is a very volatile fund.

AS F'd up as Boeing is, it's pretty tempting in the low 200 levels.

Started my investing in 1995 when DOW was around 5500.

I sat through recessions, depressions, 911, too many wars (and viruses) to count.

The only times I took a big hit (by missing out on huge subsequent gains) is when I bailed. One was prior to the Y2K scare. I forget when the other was.

I’m about 20 % cash, widely diversified otherwise.

I’m down about 150k (on paper) right now, and I ain’t doing nuffin!

This, like all others, will be old news in time.

Yup...interesting part it watching the politics of this all...some want it to be down, while others want it to be up. Go figure.

Yes I have, and you are correct about an eventual rebound.

I think we're on the same page. I'm not keying on financial indicators, I'm keying on the media. I could see in the first week that they were the root cause of this latest panic.

Don't touch it, give it some time, mine dropped $2000 in 2 months. but it also dropped $4000 a year and 2 months ago.. it recovered nicely over the course and gained.

About the same story here. "On paper" my Mutual Funds are DOWN $160,000. Yesterdays drop was $36,000 in a single loss. The ONLY panic I have done, I have suspended my monthly draw off my IRA.

Yep, I'm in it for the long haul. It's tough looking at it right now, but I can also recall back when what I had was next to nothin'...

The market was way overvalued for years and any attempt to time it or sit out was punished. Now it's giving back some of the excess. I try to think of it as if my bank made a mistake and gave me money I didn't deserve and then took it back. Yes you could have cashed out big in February but the markets been going up for 10 years so you would have had to guess 1 out of 120 months to sell and then guess when to go back in which is unknown.

Hardest thing to do is rebalance. Bonds are high & stock is down so you should be selling some bonds and buying some stock just to get back to your mix goal. Very hard to do!



https://www.macrotrends.net/2488/sp500-10-year-daily-chart

It will take a few weeks to find the bottom now. The pandemic has been announced and everyone that thinks about selling and cashing out will do so soon, if they haven’t already. That is when the market finds a bottom...when everyone that wants out, is out.

A genuine bloodbath.

I jumped ship! At my age and health concerns I couldn't lose anymore. Good luck to those who are young and healthy and are in it for the long haul!

That`s the problem with people that say they are in it for the long haul. What if you don`t have the time to wait until you can get out. Unless things have changed that i don`t know about nobody lives forever. It`s going to be ugly.

The only part that scares me and I guess it shouldn't is I'm holding and can wait it out. I have a pension and Social Security to get by on. But at 64 if I should pass away I really don't know the rules re-guarding when my kids would have to cash out my account. I have no Wife to worry about and my Sons are now 28 and 31 so between the house, shop, cars, tools, and truck they both will get something from my estate but I would hate to see them have to "cash out" in bad times.

My take, its all "paper money" gains anyway, and I believe currently, 82% of the recent gains, have evaporated.

Chickens always, eventually, come home to roost.

Betting otherwise, is never a sure bet.

If it's just a straight portfolio, not some 401K or similar, nothing says they ever have to cash it out depending on how your will is structured.

A will is for all intents and purposes a trust so you just have it structured so that the executor/trustee has the option to liquidate or run the estate.

That's how the likes of the Kennedys and Rockefellers do it. Own nothing, control everything.

Kevin

Glad I am out, but will get back in, no choice. Just like last time interest is so low I have to buy stock, only question is when. Kinda getting worried, schools are closing, bus lines are closing, and military medivac helicopters flying around, serious preparation.

I dipped my toe in and bought some JPM @ $87 was $141 in January. A little only buying 10 shares at a time and have them staggered lower. Same on BRKB but only trying 5 shares at a time. Damn Boeing got as low as $155 up to $186 now back down to $165. CRAZY

Inherited IRA's used to be able to go on a minimum distribution based on the person inherited age, same as the orig owners... No longer... The Secure act changed everything.

The SECURE Act dictates that, for accounts inherited after Dec. 31, 2019, non-spouse beneficiaries typically must cash out the account within 10 years of the original owner's death. Some heirs are exempted: those whose age is within a decade of the deceased's; disabled or chronically ill individuals; or minor children. However, these minors must be direct descendants (no grandchildren, in other words) and, once they reach majority age, the 10-year rule kicks in for them too. There's no particular timetable for the withdrawals; they can be taken annually or all at once.

So they would have to liquidate the IRA within 10 years.

It's one way to pay for those tax cuts by removing money from tax exempt accounts which are inherited.

Just checked mine again today... now down slightly over 14%. But that wasn't my only surprise. I also learned that my employer made a contribution to my account yesterday that more than covered my losses.

Of course, given the way things are going I'll lose some of that too before things fully recover... But I'm not complaining.

Boeing down at $160. and change is tempting...

Just not tempting enough...

I need to buy stock in adult toys. People are staying home and have to keep themselves busy/entertained somehow.

One good thing about the stock market drop. If you run out of toilet paper you have something to use. lol 😂

I wish I had invested in toilet paper.

Our stock (PGR) is down quite a bit, but that's temporary. We were making money hand over fist before the market crashed. We are a product that is mandated by law, and guess what? There are fewer people commuting right now, fewer people traveling, fewer people driving to games, recreational activities, school, etc...fewer cars on the road = reduced loss frequency = more profits. Our stock was flying along before this, and it's going to take right back off again as soon as this sort itself out, and maybe earlier than that.

I have been considering buying some PGR stock myself. Less driving means fewer claims. Fewer claims equals more profit.

I am certainly no expert but I think this is a 2-6 month “panic”. Then the fear will subside some and we slowly get back to a “normal” market. I don’t think it will snap back as quick as it dropped.

Buying puts and selling call credit spreads has kept me busy.

$150 yesterday worked for me. $170 now question is when to sell lol. JPM @ 87 now 95 missed DIS bid too cheap. Wouldn't be surprised if they didn't give it all back this afternoon. S&P did break 2500 yesterday closed at 2480. If it doesn't hold around 2140 is the next support which is another 14.5% lower. Lets see if it holds and then might be time to reload! But not on a Friday especially the 13th. lol

I opened an account today with TD Ameritrade and wrote the biggest check of my life. We shall see what happens.

Be careful. This is not Las Vegas! make sure you understand defensive strategies. Stop loss orders, puts, spreads, etc

Good luck, it took a few months for the market to find bottom in 2008. It's only been two weeks..

moved mine to the money market,low risk til this passes,i did invest in 3 72-73 barracudas pretty safe investment

Should be going back down next week there was a ton of short covering the last 30 minutes. Also remember it was still down 9% for the week and 20% overall. There will be selling pressure for people who didn't get out but want out now.

Dang Joel I hope you had a limit on MORL down 50% in a couple days now a 53% dividend.

Thankfully, I had a stop loss sell order set at 10.00. It hit on Wednesday, by the time it was executed it sold for about $9.90 a share. So I lost about 20% of what I put in. but I'm really happy that I stopped out when I did! I was expecting some kind of a bounce or upward move in all this volatility that I could play but it never happened. With a massive drop on Thursday, I wish I would have been short. So much for the veracity of my crystal ball.
Regardless, I think it's important to pay heed to the old axiom "cut your losses short, let your profits run."

I opened a cash account and plan to keep it pretty simple for now, no futures, options or selling short. I may not even use stop losses. If the prices keep falling I'll keep buying. I have 20+ years till retirement age so I have time to ride it out. As long as prices go back up eventually I'll come out ahead and I'm pretty sure once fears of Covid-19 go away things will level off. There is no guarantee stock prices will ever be as high as they were recently, but I'm willing to take some risk.



Thanks. I think it is hard for anyone to tell the bottom, even the experienced. They say to never time the market. As long as I'm not buying at the top I think I can eventually come out ahead.

I just checked my account and the stocks I picked moved up19% Friday but the mutual & etfs were only up 5%. Good companies are on sale but others aren't down very much and have more room to fall. Be careful and move slowly. I wouldn't put any money in a index fund unless it gets under 2700. My guess is around 2750 will be about as high as it can hold for a while anything over will probably be sold.


Joel that's great news that you're out there's a really good chance that fund is going to fail. The entire thing is debt. Which is fine in a up market but I wouldn't touch it now.

Boy is it going to be a bloodbath today, holy smokes. Futures limited down in about 10 minutes yesterday, lots of tickers are in a free-fall.

Looks like I will be stocking up on some Silver and Gold pretty soon.

here is the real problem no one is talking about.

https://www.nysscpa.org/news/public...sturbing-parallels-to-2008-crisis-101819

What I find alarming is that everyone is selling off gold and silver. I guess to cover their loses quickly. I bought my first gold before Christmas and it’s down past that. May be time to buy more, now. Silver looks a good buy now. Of coarse, you can’t eat either one of those. Beans might be the better investment. Panic is a scary thing. I’ve got cash in the bank that I’ve been hilding off and not putting in the stock market because I knew the bubble would burst. It just can’t stay high forever. It’s been going up too fast. All it needed was this virus to start the plunge.

LET’s not forget a trillion dollar deficit and climbing that is being transferred to our children!

[quote=340challconvert]
LET’s not forget a trillion dollar deficit and climbing that is being transferred to our children!

I don't believe they ever plan to pay it. Some experts claim since we are the #1 currency in the world when we devalue with debt they follow and do the same thing keeping the status quo. They say if and only when a stronger currency comes along will it be a problem. Don't know if it's true or not but they really don't seem to care.

I think I'm gonna buy some more Disney stock...

What do you like about DIS at this point in time?

How bout charmin and angel soft stocks?

I hear the lines are shorter to get on the rides but the food still suxs.

Margin calls is my guess on why for gold and silver.

The issue Ii have with the huge debt loads is companies have been borrowing money for YEARS to institute stock buyback programs. IMO, that is just more crappy financial engineering that will linger for ages. Used to be that companies used retained earnings for buyback... not any more.

And the fed comes in with more horrible monetary policy in the race to zero interest rates. Idiocy... shoot all your bullets at something you can't stop or kill, genius!

Well I can't bail out due to IRS will take 37% right off the top of everything I've saved 45 years of working. Not counting my Roth IRA's, If I were to cash out just my Traditional IRA. I have already lost 38% on this market drop, can not compound that with another 37% tax penalty.

Todays loss was the biggest drop since 1987. I lost over $45K on my funds just today....

I dont know if you can do this, but I sold the stocks and moved the $ to a money market fund within my IRA. So it was a non-taxable event.

I am watching these prices......and there are going to be some epic opportunities once it settles down a bit. This is the “black swan” event that people have spoke about for generations. However, the American way of life, as whole will return as soon as panic subsides and a vaccine is available.

Maybe we should get a Moparts shopping list together and see what everyone else is watching?

CSCO
GOOG
MSFT
OXY since ICHAN bought 10%
BRK.B
KO
LMT


My local favorites
XEL electric company
ATO gas company

DISCLAIMER...not buying all of them but certainly watching them. Also think DIS will be a good long since there is going be a baby boom coming! I just want it much cheaper since all the parks are mothballed. Also would love AAPL at a much cheaper price. It hasn’t suffered the same haircut as the rest of the market.

I like that idea, a Moparts watch list. Because I am very unsure what to get back into, let alone when.

Is anybody short selling any stocks, or buying any puts, or selling any calls. I keep thinking about it, but haven't. If I ever do, it will be a good time for everyone to go long, because I'm no good at picking short term plays...

You move to cash INSIDE the IRA

I short TSLA, Shop, NVDA, NFLX daily. Never long term.

I am certainly not the guy to help pick a stock. But from really watching the market pretty close over the last 5/6 years. This pull back (crash), in my opinion is the time to buy long term holdings. Not just random companies. Companies that are top of their industries.
I always try to buy companies that you can’t do without.....

Visa or MasterCard......in a store, online, clothing, travel, car parts....it’s unlimited and can be used anywhere..
AMZN....the future of shopping and possibly streaming content
Google...CSCO MSFT....all excellent companies
Local utility companies because people can’t live without them...
JNJ...BMY...PFE....drug companies that just about everyone uses
KO.....Safer dividend play at about any level below today’s price (in my opinion)


Knowing very little about the market. Back years ago I wish I would have known what SPY was. It is the S&P500 etf. Basically buying a small piece of each company in the Standards and Poors 500. Basically takes some of the risk away versus owning and individual stock. It is not the quickest way to make money but if I would have been buying SPY only all these years I could have retired very nicely by now.


I personally think when someone decides to go back in the market. Buy a good company and know you may not pick the bottom but I really don’t see any of these top companies being cheaper 2-3-5 years from now....UNLESS these black swan events start being episodes.



I don’t short because.....losses can be infinite. Where if you own a stock it can only go to ZERO. A few weeks ago anyone short Tesla pretty much got wiped out.....when a stock moves like that it can kill you. You would be better off buying/selling puts/calls versus risking the capital to short.

Yes indeed... I suggest that to ANYONE that is in a 401K/IRA that has the ability to buy stock/ETF. Forget mutual funds and by the SPY. Want tech, buy QQQ; Small cap buy IWM; bonds TLT. Less grotesque fees and MOST funds out there don't beat these benchmarks if they are compared. Want to juice the returns... sell covered calls above the current price of the etf if you have 100 shares. If you do it right, it can boost returns 5-12% per year. Inside an IRA there is no taxable event so no worries on accounting/tax returns.

The amazing thing... This retirement stuff of a persons wealth is usually #1 or #2 on total asset value held. YET, people don't bother to educate themselves about it and rely on percentage sucking, poorer returns than the index financial advisors and managers. Crazy.

I know I mentioned Boeing at 190, it's 130 today. They aren't going out of business IMO... too many contracts with Govt, etc.

If you can sell puts, which is what Buffet does but never talks about it.... You can sell a 4/17/2020 100 put on Boeing for ~$1100 If boeing gets below $100 you might get the stock, if not, you collect $1100. If it doesn't get below $89, you are still better than breakeven. Another way to JUICE returns in a portfolio. There are other things you can do if Boeing drops below $100 to repair a potentially broken trade if you don't want the stock.

Never short and hold overnight if losses like TSLA are a concern and stops during the day if in the sandbox. Yes options are a play, very expensive but a play. Had a friend bought 400 calls right before blast off... needless to say she made a cool 3 million on the trade.

The way things are going, might want to roll with Brass.

Still sticking with utility DIV stocks... they ride the wave and keep on paying.
Luckily the large chunk of my company stock in the 401k will definitely keep paying & raising the DIV
They raised the DIV every single year throughout the crisis from '08 on...
People give up a lot of things when times get tough... but these days almost no one gives up their cell phone.
And millennial's will go without food, and miss a car payment to keep their smart phone service working

I don’t understand why utilities (as well as gold) have been so hard hit.

I thought they weathered downturns much better.

My Ameren and Nextera companies have really taken a hit...:along with everything else, including bonds!

Seems nowhere to hide, though I’m about 30% in paltry CD’s and cash in general.

Oh well, this too shall pass... and rebound heavily me thinks.

I still ain’t changin nuffin!

https://www.thesimpledollar.com/inv...stock-market-days-can-tank-your-returns/

I believe I’m down about $400k on paper.

Haven’t lost a second of sleep..,

This happens when people have to raise cash. They sell what they can. Some investments can't get a buy bid high enough to raise cash.

BRKB is one of the safest bets because of the huge cash position. Buffet will ending up buying companies for pennies.

Joel you hit the lottery getting out MORL was down to $2 today.

None of this drop was caused by problems with the economy itself, unlike 2008. Not worried. Annoyed, but that's about it.

Oh, and buying PGR. Just reported the Feb 2020 results today. Unlike most companies, they report monthly, not quarterly. More double digit growth, and with a very, very low combined ratio.

Good times are here again,

Free Money within 2 weeks for everybody.

What a concept.

With so many people now being forced to work from home, maybe Adobe (ADBE) would be a good pick for a long position, as companies will have to equip people home computers with the latest software. What do you think?

THis crap is going to tank the economy. 3/4 of the workforce will choose free money over work any day of the week. The free money will be GUARANTEED until past november, regardless of the virus for obvious reasons.

I've been looking at Tesla as a candidate for buying puts. A company that has never made money, but always lost money, selling a luxury item to a population out of work in a tanked economy. It rose so much so fast over the last year. It has fallen to under 1/2 of i's recent high. If it retreats from it's current 450ish back to it's 52 week low of 175ish, that a HUGE gain on puts. What do you think?

Tesla makes me nervous, only because Musk is genius, but also a total fraud as a businessman. As you said, he's never turned a profit. Ever. Not once. Burns through cash like it's kindling. However, the cult of personality is real with him, and his customer base is just as loyal as his investors. Will they find a way to keep buying his cars if their incomes go down? My guess is yes, because the people hurt by this are not going to be the people with high paying, salaried jobs. It's going to be small business owners, and hourly workers, and they are not his followers.

nah. If someone chooses to live on $12k a year, vs $12k + job income, then we probably don't want them working, and they freed up a job for someone that does want to work.


I'd buy more tesla now, but my job deals with schools and large groups of people, so even though I work from home, we have a very uncertain future at the moment.

i think they are talking about a one time $1000 pmt to taxpayers, plus maybe eliminating the SS payroll tax through the year or something.
that's hardly enough to live off of.

Our health insurance will cost us nearly 1000 bucks a month...

Years ago my company I worked for, (Nameless but starts with a V) working with my IBEW union offered a stupid contract. The union was wanting 5% but the company was giving 2.5%. We rejected it and then the company offered a $1,000 signing bonus for that 2.5% contract. 60% voted YES. If we had gotten the 5% it would have been $5,200 more ($6,200) over the 3 years.
But Money in hand buys votes from stupid thinkers. "Oh, I can buy that 52 inch big screen TV"

yeah, but the admin is trying to stimulate the economy, they want everyone to go out and spend $1000 as soon as they get it. I'm sure as hell saving it...

it also looks like this stimulus will cost another trillion dollars.

I am pretty sure they are going to send it out to taxpayers who make below X number of dollars. I figure I will be about $3 above the cutoff point...🤣. I am okay with that.

$1000 checks are a waste of taxpayer's money.

MOre like bribe money for votes.

Spend the money on TESTS! EVERYONE needs to get a TEST!

Paid sick leave. Extend unemployment benefits.

I don't need a one-time check for $1000. I'm not starving.

Stupid priorities.

The reason they are wanting to do the checks. They claim they can get more cash in people’s hands, quicker, that way. If they do a tax break, it would take months to get the same amount of money in each persons hand. Their concern is not with the person who makes enough to have 6-8 months worth of salary saved up. It is with the people living check to check.

Plus, a tax break doesn't help if you don't have a job anymore.

Unemployment usually has a lot of hoops and bureaucracy to jump through. A check in the mail? Simple, easy, and quick. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

And if you don't need it, you can throw back into the stock market, which will *gasp* help the market too.

How many tests? Test negative today...what about next week? Or the week after...

Another limit down night on the futures.

Checks in the mail sounds like socialism to me.

Nothings free. Someone will pay for it.

Yes it was a sarcastic quip, more like re arranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, or a carpenter thinking everything can be fixed with a hammer, or "hey look over there",etc

I pulled the trigger yesterday on Tesla puts. April 17, $450 strike, paid $67.75. Short term move, I have to watch it close. I don't think a stop loss sell order is available based on the price of the underlying stock, and I don't trust the option market makers to not drop the price just to stop me out and laugh at the amature.

Then your definition of socialism is wrong

Sounds like definitions then, are just to fit the occasion.

That should have a good profit on it already. Stock down 11% today. Did you see MORL got down to $.23 today?

Yes, it's up 56% today. I don't want to get greedy, but still hanging on to it for now. MORL, unbelievable! Those who shorted it are doing well.

Big 3 automakers and Tesla shutting down

Circuit breaker again

Yesterday there were talking about reducing production... which makes sense given the lack of people going anywhere.
Today I noticed how they all announced they were shutting down at the tail end of the Free Money for everybody press conference.

Markets don't generally like a WIDE OPEN spigot money policy.
They tried that in 2008 with TARP, and markets responded by dropping another 5-6k points.

Good time for American's to buy their classic cars back from the Australians who scooped them up a few years back.
Ausi & Canadian dollars aren't worth much right now (high $0.50's-low $0.60's) ... even the British pound is down to $1.15

Also notice the 10yr & 30yr yields heading upwards (despite Fed moves) as buyers dried up after the massive spending announcements.

Meanwhile millennial's still down in FL doing body shots, & the plain old flu kills another 20-30k, but no one cares
Interesting times...

i can't wait for my free money !

oh, wait........ i'm retired..........
maybe i can get free TP ?

This probably won't help profits much either;
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...offered-to-make-ventilators-for-outbreak

Not sure if this is best here or the stock market thread.

Anybody else puzzled why the cruise ship industry is so high up on the list of needing to be bailed out?

I have heard the term often, "no fault of their own" regarding this virus sparked economic downturn.

Doesn't seem the virus is much impacted by saving the cruise industry, actually I think they deserve some focus for being the initial petri dishes, and being so slow to react to their contribution to actually magnifying it.

I mean the cruise industry is a bunch of foreign? flagged billion dollar ships, manned mainly by small foreign nation workers, that dock in the US to pick up US passengers.

How is their existence important economically to helping the millions out of or soon to be out of work in the US?

Let them sink or swim (pun not intended) on their own.

WHat's pathetic is that we had a booming economy yet running TRILLION-DOLLAR deficits.

Now w/this disaster, we'll be running $3 Trillion-dollar annual deficits.

Tells you how well this country is being run.

I really liked the days of 20% plus prime, no deficit and only people who could really pay it back got loans.

Such an odd concept to some.

Years ago, had a friend that wanted a surefire investment. I suggested he only sell property to people that couldn't afford to make the payments. Even he wasn't hard hearted enough for that scheme. Evidently a lot of bankers weren't so squeamish, especially with government backing the loans. That whole deal didn't work out so well in the end either.

Who thinks we are at the bottom? The rumor that the quarantines could end at the end of March seem to be well received. The risk is that if the virus take a huge toll in the US and drives the market down further. Maybe it's time to take some long positions, with some protective puts?

What do you guys think?

Just got this today, an excerpt from a newsletter dated 3/23/20 , no idea about the validity, just posting it out there :

A question on everyone’s mind is “When will we know the bottom is in?” In this edition of Top Market Takeaways: Three things to watch, our authors believe we will know when the bottom is in once we see three things start to happen.

1. The number of daily new COVID-19 infections declines.

2. The Fed helps fix problems in fixed income and money markets.

3. Fiscal stimulus around the world is both large enough and well-designed enough to cushion the economic fallout.

i don't believe any of those three will be resolved in the next few weeks.

If you're still in at this point, you may as well stay in. When this is resolved, and everyone has an interest in seeing that happen ASAP, the renewed activity will spark a recovery. Places are idled and people are laid off. We can all pick up where we left off in a matter of a few days. Supply will catch up, people will be ready to go out to eat and attend activities.

When there are enough test kits out to really know who is carrying and who is not, that will be a real game changer. In fact, there is a test now that shows results in as little as 45 minutes. Once they can pin point who specifically needs to be quarantined and who doesn't, many of us can start the return to normal.

And there are a number of treatments that are in trials in NY that show promise.

If/when they can test and determine quickly who is a carrier and are able to successfully treat those who are sick, they will be on top of this. And both of those things appear to be happening.

Everybody wants to get back to normal ASAP.

P.S. The market made it's biggest one day gains in history today, closing up over 11%.

Article never said it would happen in a couple of weeks.
Months is more feasible

Bear market bounces are always the largest % gains. And the bailout. Houston just shut down and as more areas of the country get infected it will only get worse. People will get scared and selling will resume.

Ford at $5.00.

bought ford after auto bail outs at $7 went to $15 not long after,and hasnt done much since.

I threw $500 at it at $5.00, just to horse around a bit.

Seems like Rose-Colored-Glasses aren't scarce these days.

On any investment now,
one has to ask the question:

How will this industry be affected both short term and long term,
by the 2.2 Trillion $ the government just borrowed,
and the additional 3 Trillion $ it may borrow in the next few months?

It is not anywhere near “normal” conditions.

The only year similar was perhaps 1945.

When the talking heads on TV start telling you not to sell, you are already 2 weeks late in selling everything.

And three weeks behind some of our serving leaders that did insider trading.

I had a call today from my stock guy.. I pretty much knew what he was gonna say but I asked..
how bad is it.. he asked if I REALLY wanted to know.. he said things arent looking good but he
also said not to worry... I'm in a few guaranteed funds.. we will see

Should've waited a few days.

I'm not sold on the rebound as much as the knuckleheads on financial tv crow about it.

Increasing prices on declining volume... not usually a recipe for success.

I think the "V" we've heard so much about is going to be a bit misshapen.

I personally think this bounce is just adding a little padding to give room to fall once the next round of earning start. The major companies all have those in the next month or so. I am sitting about 85% cash after today. I have basically been trading the bounces. Buy on red days and selling on Green Day’s. It has really worked out well with these wild swings. I jumped out a bit early today but still had one of my best days. Considering the climate...my account chart looks pretty good!

This market still makes no sense to me. I am staying out of it with one-eye open waiting for a better opportunity.

I agree, otherwise I would be loading the boat. I know the government injections have propped up the market and then you have the FOMO (fear of missing out) people racing in thinking it is a V bottom. However you can’t overlook that most companies took a HUGE hit to the bottom line. My first thought when all this was starting up and businesses were closing down was, CVS, Walgreens, grocery stores, Dollar General, Walmart, Target and credit card companies would be huge winners. However all of them are bound to suffer. They all have shortened their hours and limiting the number of customers. That is hard to overcome.

Funeral services! My grandfather said to invest in hospitals and funeral parlors. You have it covered coming and going.

I know someone close to me that works in a hospital. I can tell you that their bottom line is going to be terrible. All elective surgeries have been cancelled and about every hospital out there is trying to empty every possible room they can. They don’t want to put any more people in harms way than they absolutely have to. In doing that....they are having to furlough staff and cut hours across the board.


Funeral services....well being they are asking people to not attend services....people are not spending near what they would if they were expecting hundreds of people.....some are only doing graveside for the absolute immediate family. CSV is a stock that I watch because someone I know manages one of their facilities.

Up almost $19/share in less than a month.

Yeah I'm usually a long term investor but I decided to move to cash when this virus stuff started to break. I did do a little short term speculation with the cash recently and picked up a nice chunk of change but I'm not ready to make long term investments right now. It looks like things are going to be pretty rough for at least six months. I don't expect everything to be back to normal until a vaccine is widely available and that could be at least a year away.

Just been day trading for the last couple of weeks and doing pretty good. Not as good as I would have if I loaded up on all big names and let it ride. However I can sleep at night without worrying if a bad headline was going to wipe all my gains. I think we are headed back to around 260 on SPY, which is when I will start buying back in for a longer term.

I've been using the latest run up to exit most of my positions. I see no reason to be invested now. We're looking at some serious damage to the economy over the next 12 months so I don't see any reason to own stocks while all of that gets sorted out. I'll get back into the market once things settle down. I don't really know why the market has been moving up so strongly the past few weeks. Someone big is betting on a quick return to normal but everything I see and hear tells me that a lot of little guys are in the process of being wiped out. So I'll just wait this one out. I really don't need to take a bunch of risk for a small reward at this point in my life.

I certainly understand the apprehension, and everyone not only dances to their own drum, but has their own risk tolerances, age, and a host of other factors.

Personally, I feel a well diversified portfolio is my way to go (with at least a five year hold outlook) i’m positioned about 25% cash and CD’d, maybe 5% gold/silver, and the rest widely scattered in the open market, with some high rated short term bonds.

Even “cash” can be eaten away, if overt inflation rears its ugly head. With all the money being mass printed, that has to be considered.

With the Great Depression, two world wars, real estate meltdown, dot com collapse etc, etc. it always looks darkest in the middle of whatever crisis.

“But THIS TIME is different!” Some truth in that, but I believe we WILL get through this.

If not, investment decisions probably won’t matter.

Only the basic survival needs will count. I put that likelihood WAY down the list,

It does depend on the circumstances. If a person has a portfolio in a taxable account then I wouldn't recommend selling, especially if they have enough cash to ride out the next couple of years. But for someone with tax deferred accounts I don't see a good reason to remain invested while all of this gets sorted out. Move it to cash and just wait and see. Portfolios don't mean much in a panic since everything goes down. Mutual funds can be hard to sell in a panic and even safe money market funds can have problems. We saw issues like that in 2008 and again in 2020. Muni bonds can be blown up fairly easily and so can corporate bonds. There will be a lot of bankruptcies coming out of this so a bunch of bonds will get blown up over the next 18 months.

So how do people feel now?

I had a new account with TD Ameritrade in the later part of March. I wasn't going to wait 3 months or longer to start trading, however I did keep a large portion in cash because people kept saying it would get worse. Now that the shock and awe of Covid 19 has worn off I don't think there will be another huge crash, even if earnings reports are lower. That may already be built into the price.

I did some things wrong and some things right.

I bought UCO too soon and never thought oil could go below $0. I bought it several times at different price points, including the day oil was below $0. This was going to be my big money maker. I'm still in the hole but I'm in for the long haul. I was much further in the hole for a while. The current price of oil is unsustainable and nobody in the business wants the price to remain where it is.

Since I was losing in oil and that was going to be my main focus, I decided to diversify. I bought URTY on April 1st for $17.22/share. It is currently trading at $32.37/share (over 87% gain). I don't think I'll be losing money on this for a long time. Unfortunately, I didn't buy enough. Hindsight is almost 20:20.

Now it feels too late to put the rest of the cash into the market, unless there is a recession coming or another large drop. It doesn't seem as likely as people were predicting 2 months ago.

I've done really well with PGR and Ford. I sold my Moderna near the height, and boy, am I glad I did. Took a $1k gamble on Akorn and got burned. Made a few bucks on KTOV.

My 401k has bounced back nicely. I've recovered about 75% of my losses there. The college funds are about back to where they were. Not quite, but close.

I made about 60% in a day on a small amount with some put options on Tesla. I wish I would have predicted the reversal and bought some call, but I thought it was going lower. Other than that, I'm still on the sidelines. I might start getting back in, but I don't have time to study individual stock buys right now. Maybe get into an S&P index and a NASDAQ index?

I'm still surprised the bottom (if that was the bottom) came as early as it did. We didn't know what we were into in mid-March. Of course, maybe it was the lack of information that drove it so low in the first place.

^^^ I agree. Especially considering the current 'unemployment' rates.

On a side note, do you guys use a specific software to track your investments? I use Fidelity and Schwab as my brokerages and would like to set-up something where I can track performance, dividends and dates, etc. What do you guys use?

Honestly, I think it's going to dive again. A lot of people are still not working, and the extended benefits are going to run out at some point. Congress seems to not care to extend anything either. And that was before all of the protests.

It does show how disconnected Wall Street is from Main Street though, and why we can't necessarily say that everyone is doing fine just because the stock market is up.

My 401k is up about $97k since Jan 1, but is down about $45k from it's all-time high, which was in late Feb or early March, I think?

I sold everything in my brokerage account yesterday. Took my profits and went home PGR and Ford were good to me.

Interesting...

Are you out permanently, or do you plan on getting back in at some point.

If so, what do you plan for the future?

Not trying to be nosy, just curious.

Sounds like you did well. Selling everything is a big move. Even if the market goes down a few percent in the next couple months, most people can't get back in fast enough (calling the bottom) and miss most of the initial move to the upside. Research shows that most of the yearly gains are made on only a few days, and if you were out those days, you underperform for the year. Most people.

I was lucky enough to buy some Boeing stock on 5/4, $126. I missed the bottom around $96. But I am happy with the 62% gain since 5/4. Plan a long term holding of that company. I expect $300 in 18 months or less (never a straight line move up or down).

Bought some Microsoft on 3/16/2020, $141. It is up 32% since then. Again I plan a long term holding.

The low on the S&P 500 index was 3/23/2020. It has recovered in 3 months. That wasn’t long to wait for a recovery for somebody that just sat tight and held.
I think the 2008 financial crisis took close to 3 years to recover.

Hemi_Joel (2/27/2020) well the S&P is up 7.2% since then. Glad I didn’t bail out completely like he did.
Cracked_back (4/6/2020) he wasn’t sold on the rebound. But the S&P is up 28% since then. He missed it.

My brokerage account is not my primary source of investment/savings. I have a 401k, my wife and I have Roths, my wife has a pension and a 403b, and we have 529s for the kids, plus a savings account, and 2 CDs for each kid. The $$ I put into my brokerage account was $$ that I could afford to take a risk with. Some of it worked, some did not. Overall, I did pretty well. We're about to drop about $40k into remodeling part of our house, so the $$ that was in the brokerage account is going to be put to use there. I am sure I will get back in at some point, but I'm happy with how it turned out.

By "everything," I meant just what I had in my brokerage account. See above.

Nice move with Boeing. I hope that pays off handsomely for you.

Between the feds and the white house they have printed and added over 7 trillion to the economy. Sure the market is going up with the extra free money and 0 interest rates and will continue to rise. Your currency has been devalued. Unless the virus makes a huge come back it's not correcting anytime soon. Once the layoffs start after the PPP reaches the time they don't have to pay back the loans it could get interesting.

I made $79K last month and am positive for a year. As I stated back in March it's an election year and the S & P will be back over 3,000 by the election and here it is.

I think now is an excellent time to cash out anything that is in a tax deferred account. A taxable account is a different issue and would require some thought. The market has bounced back strong but valuations are super high and demand is really low so something is going to have to give. My gut tells me that there will be a break down in the market and once it starts heading down there won't be much to stop it this time. I'm staying on the sidelines for now.

Still not sold and this is ALL fed pump on low volume. The big players aren't in this and JMO, that should create some uneasiness. If the volume was higher and strong on up days, I might be convinced.

I'm not a buy and hold guy, don't give two piles of dung about how far up the market is from the lows. I trade an entirely different style and the gains I have dwarf any of the index market rebound. Some days I'll make 10%+ and the market is flat or down. The general trend is always up though for the longer term buy/hold folks. It's always wise to pay attention to the trend.

I did buy some LEAPS on BA when it was sub $100, so that's my long term approach.

Lots of ways to make a buck in the market.

I rode out the storm for the most part. Was down close to 40 percent back in March, now have recovered to 95 percent of previous high.

Only changes I made was to double down on some of my worst performers and buy a handful of things that seemed like a good buy.

I might offload some of my tech stocks soon, they enjoyed quite a boost these last 2 quarters but once life resumes normal I expect them to drop back as people aren't forced to stay home and surf the net.

I might use those funds to buy airline stock. But im waiting to see how they're doing. It will be a long term purchase.

As for the general economy I believe it will come back, people have had a taste of a pretty great economy for the last 3 years, something that many have never experienced, looking at you millennials and minorities.