Do you think Dow 18,000 was the bottom?

[street]

With the feds 600$ and the states unemployment check a week, most all these people are making more not working then working. I know a few that are making ~ 6000$ a month not working. Most will ride that out till money dries up then get serious about working again.

 

[Dtail]

With the feds 600$ and the states unemployment check a week, most all these people are making more not working then working. I know a few that are making ~ 6000$ a month not working. Most will ride that out till money dries up then get serious about working again.

So they feel confident that they can get those type jobs back so easily when they wish to?
I would think there would be lots of competition for 30k type jobs.

 

[street]

I can't answer your question on confidence or competition but I do know that for a fact that two I know are doing it. These two nevah made that kind of money in there life per month. One of the men is my neighbor and rules are to look for work each week etc.. He calls people that own businesses and he knows they aren't hiring but he has contact with them so he has proof of looking for work. Not right but I would bet there is millions doing that gig. Ride it till it is dry baby..

 

[brewer12345]

I can't answer your question on confidence or competition but I do know that for a fact that two I know are doing it. These two nevah made that kind of money in there life per month. One of the men is my neighbor and rules are to look for work each week etc.. He calls people that own businesses and he knows they aren't hiring but he has contact with them so he has proof of looking for work. Not right but I would bet there is millions doing that gig. Ride it till it is dry baby..

"I keep applying to be a dancer at the strip club. I can't help that they won't hire me."

Millions paid not to work. Millions more paid via ppp when there is nothing for them to do. This country is like the ussr. Ample reason to bid equities up beyond the most ridiculous bubble ever seen.

 

[lalanian6]

strong support level @ 23,000 so we could official say goodbye to DOW 18,000.

I agree

 

[tdv2]

strong support level @ 23,000 so we could official say goodbye to DOW 18,000.

This would be technical analysis, "support level 23,000", yada, yada, yada....meaning less to me. It still amazes me how many so called technicians try to glean useful information from past market levels or movements etc. You can do any number of complex math processes on short term data like FFT's and find weak signals that most of the time have no useful value in predicting future prices. Many claim that there is a weak correlation between future price moments and short term momentum. I have never read any papers or research that is convincing enough to make a meaningful difference in juicing portfolio returns. Having a portfolio that is consistent with your personal financial situation should enable one to view short term price movements as don't cares.

 

[pb4uski]

+1 ***** pocus

 

[Markola]

With the feds 600$ and the states unemployment check a week, most all these people are making more not working then working. I know a few that are making ~ 6000$ a month not working. Most will ride that out till money dries up then get serious about working again.

And why not? Corporate leaders do anything for a buck, including seeking and taking every form of government subsidy and bailout. Meanwhile, they offload as much basic life support as they can get away with, starting with healthcare, onto the taxpayers to handle for them. Corporate leaders and their favored politicians like to delude themselves in the belief that they are “free market capitalists” and their reliance on endless government crutches as “maximizing shareholder value.” Someone above said the U.S. is like the USSR. It’s clearly not. Rather, it is, thankfully, more like the social democracies of Europe. All the government supports kicking in during this crisis are necessary to keep the economy functioning, ultimately by soothing unemployed people so that they don’t chop the heads off of CEOs and politicians and stake them on bridges. The difference is, the Europeans are more honest about what they call this system, social democracy. No one would want to live in an actual capitalist system and, if we did, it would not last very long. These are the very times that business owners ought to be grateful to the taxpayers for filling in the many gaps, services and failures of the market system that allows their Burger Kings to exist and continue vs. becoming charbroiled, smoldering ruins.

 

[misanman]

I have a 75 year old friend that works an occasional gig with a national testing company. He has been "laid off" because the spring test sessions were largely cancelled. He's collecting unemployment + the $600/week. He does have to apply for jobs and he's been called back on some of them. Not sure how he finesses not accepting some of the positions he's been offered. Very nice supplement to his pension and social security.

 

[street]

And why not? Corporate leaders do anything for a buck, including seeking and taking every form of government subsidy and bailout. Meanwhile, they offload as much basic life support as they can get away, starting with healthcare, with onto the taxpayers to handle for them. Corporate leaders and their favored politicians like to delude themselves in the belief that they are “free market capitalists” and their reliance on endless government crutches as “maximizing shareholder value.” Someone above said the U.S. is like the USSR. It’s clearly not. Rather, it is, thankfully, more like the social democracies of Europe. All the government supports kicking in during this crisis are necessary to keep the economy functioning, ultimately by soothing unemployed people so that they don’t chop the heads off of CEOs and politicians and stake them on bridges. The difference is, the Europeans are more honest about what they call this system, social democracy. No one would want to live in an actual capitalist system and, if we did, it would not last very long.

Yep, exactly why not it is legal.

 

[jollystomper]

Some food for thought:

As the market started to drop and continued to drop the end of February through March, many were not looking at it as a "normal" drop/recession/depression", but rather "we have never seen circumstances like this before, we cannot assume that, it probably will be much worse".

With the market rising again, and people putting some hope in it, we are often told "it is too soon for a recovery, this is not how a recovery has worked in the past".

Just as we have seen a drop that "has never been seen before", what are the odds that we are seeing a recovery that "has never been seen before"?

I am not agreeing with the above. I am too dumb to know either way. My AA is for the long run and does not need a fast (or any) recovery for me to continue to enjoy retirement. Just another "thing to think about", "point to ponder", "idea to intrigue"...

 

[targatom2019]

Some food for thought:

As the market started to drop and continued to drop the end of February through March, many were not looking at it as a "normal" drop/recession/depression", but rather "we have never seen circumstances like this before, we cannot assume that, it probably will be much worse".

With the market rising again, and people putting some hope in it, we are often told "it is too soon for a recovery, this is not how a recovery has worked in the past".

Just as we have seen a drop that "has never been seen before", what are the odds that we are seeing a recovery that "has never been seen before"?

I am not agreeing with the above. I am too dumb to know either way. My AA is for the long run and does not need a fast (or any) recovery for me to continue to enjoy retirement. Just another "thing to think about", "point to ponder", "idea to intrigue"...

I am to dumb to know either so I stick with my AA, buy, hold, rebalance and not worry about the short term market movement and yet I am up 6% YTD because I over-rebalanced before March low.

 

[GravitySucks]

Not everyone who received the extra was making less than unemployment and the bonus.
The question I'm asking is what kind of society keeps bailing out the wealthy?
The money being shoveled to corporations and bond holders dwarfs the unemployment bonus and stimulus check payouts.

That is exactly what they are talking about. What society has to bribe people to go back to work?

 

[WyomingLife]

Roughly (now) 60/35/5 here. Approaching a re-balance point.

We're now up circa 14% over the past 12 months (starting date: June 8, 2019). That's 10x our annual spend (assuming somebody else is paying for our HC; if we had to self-fund our HC, that multiple would drop, of course). So my data indicate that a diversified portfolio during the Great Depression 2.0 is doing ok. More than ok, actually.

I'm glad that I haven't been diverting cash from the market to apocalypse-related non-investment expenditures: e.g., concrete and re-bar for the bunker, guns, ammo, gold, pickaxes (in case the zombies breach the concertina wire outer perimeter), and so on and so on.

 

[Klubbie]

I don't know if 18k was the bottom, but this was my first big drop with any meaningful amount of assets. I learned one lesson in this and that was to prioritize an emergency fund. We had a small buffer when this all started, but lower expenses, paying off my student loan, and no daycare costs for a few months allowed us to fix that problem quickly. I feel very fortunate and blessed to be in that position.

All I sold was 3k I had in a taxable account because I realized my EF was not big enough. Since the pandemic started we have been fortunate to stay employed and expand our EF to be about 12 months of expenses and are going to add a bit more to that buffer.

If 18k isn't the bottom we will be more prepared of we see more big drops.

 

[Montecfo]

I'm glad that I haven't been diverting cash from the market to apocalypse-related non-investment expenditures: e.g., concrete and re-bar for the bunker, guns, ammo, gold, pickaxes (in case the zombies breach the concertina wire outer perimeter), and so on and so on.

Go ahead, laugh, make fun.

 

[Montecfo]

Indexers, did you *really* not rebalance in March?

Puzzled about that.

 

[RunningBum]

Indexers, did you *really* not rebalance in March?

Puzzled about that.

I'm a little puzzled why you equate indexing with rebalancing.

Myself (an indexer), I harvested some losses, and in the process, I let my AA move away from my goal a few percent (reducing equities). Wish I hadn't done that , since things recovered around that time, but it's only a few %, and I still think the market is overpriced.

 

[Whisper66]

Indexers, did you *really* not rebalance in March? Puzzled about that.

Happened to be looking today at the "rebalancing" I did in March. My financial plan allows for asset allocation to range from a low of 60/40 to a high of 90/10. This was specifically to allow buying into corrections and selling during strong bull markets. Before March, I was about 65/35 and happy staying at that target. The market correction dropped my allocation from 65% equities to 47% equities. I felt buying equities at those low prices would be a good deal in the long run even if we hadn't yet hit bottom. So bought some index mutual funds that got me to 80% equities. Looks like the funds I bought were up 22% as of today from when I purchased them. Didn't expect such a rapid rebound. So now I'm thinking through how / when I will move back to a more conservative asset allocation, probably back in the 60-65% equities range again.

 

[Fermion]

So I can answer the OP's question in the first post with

Yes

 

[Animorph]

I changed my AA from 75/25 to 85/15 during the downturn, 5% each at -20% and -30%. I'm a little suspicious of the quick recovery so I rebalanced back to 75/25 today. We'll see how that goes, but it is my normal AA so I won't complain if the market goes higher. If it goes down again I'm reloaded to do the same thing again.

 

[Montecfo]

I'm a little puzzled why you equate indexing with rebalancing.

Myself (an indexer), I harvested some losses, and in the process, I let my AA move away from my goal a few percent (reducing equities). Wish I hadn't done that , since things recovered around that time, but it's only a few %, and I still think the market is overpriced.

I did not equate them, but most people here seem to be indexers. Regardless, when people say they did nothing when the market dropped 30 pct but are going to rebalance in x months, it seems puzzling.

A 30 percent drop would I think trigger a rebalance for most people closely following an AA. I like discipline, but there is little science behind only rebalancing at a specific time, say a specific annual date. I get that facilitates the discipline in some ways.

It sounds like you agree you should have been buying in the decline instead of selling.

The discipline of rebalancing should not get in the way of buying stocks suddenly and dramatically marked down, in my opinion.

Just an observation. Not saying I have things all figured out.

 

[Montecfo]

Happened to be looking today at the "rebalancing" I did in March. My financial plan allows for asset allocation to range from a low of 60/40 to a high of 90/10. This was specifically to allow buying into corrections and selling during strong bull markets. Before March, I was about 65/35 and happy staying at that target. The market correction dropped my allocation from 65% equities to 47% equities. I felt buying equities at those low prices would be a good deal in the long run even if we hadn't yet hit bottom. So bought some index mutual funds that got me to 80% equities. Looks like the funds I bought were up 22% as of today from when I purchased them. Didn't expect such a rapid rebound. So now I'm thinking through how / when I will move back to a more conservative asset allocation, probably back in the 60-65% equities range again.

That sounds highly rational to me, Whisper66.

 

[RunningBum]

I did not equate them, but most people here seem to be indexers. Regardless, when people say they did nothing when the market dropped 30 pct but are going to rebalance in x months, it seems puzzling.

A 30 percent drop would I think trigger a rebalance for most people closely following an AA. I like discipline, but there is little science behind only rebalancing at a specific time, say a specific annual date. I get that facilitates the discipline in some ways.

It sounds like you agree you should have been buying in the decline instead of selling.

The discipline of rebalancing should not get in the way of buying stocks suddenly and dramatically marked down, in my opinion.

Just an observation. Not saying I have things all figured out.

No, that (bolded part) is not the message I was sending. I said I wish I hadn't sold. I made an intentional decision to go away from my AA, based on a decision that the market was too high. It was not a panic or undisciplined sell.

I reviewed what I actually did. Right around the bottom I did the tax loss harvesting and exchanged some funds with losses to other index funds, different enough to avoid a wash sale. Around the start of May I exchanged some equity funds for bond funds because I thought the market had recovered too much too fast. This was the intentional shift I mentioned above. Turns out I was wrong as of today, but I'm not buying back in now.

 

[Montecfo]

No, that (bolded part) is not the message I was sending. I said I wish I hadn't sold. I made an intentional decision to go away from my AA, based on a decision that the market was too high. It was not a panic or undisciplined sell.

I reviewed what I actually did. Right around the bottom I did the tax loss harvesting and exchanged some funds with losses to other index funds, different enough to avoid a wash sale. Around the start of May I exchanged some equity funds for bond funds because I thought the market had recovered too much too fast. This was the intentional shift I mentioned above. Turns out I was wrong as of today, but I'm not buying back in now.

Well, wishing you had bought the decline instead of selling it would be rational, I think.

Since we are having the discussion, when will you rebalance? Do you do that on a certain day?

I review my portfolio regularly with an eye toward not so much rebalancing as evaluating individual holdings. Being value oriented, I am frequently generating and redeploying cash. I did sell some bond/fixed during the selloff to add to my purchases. That was just a rare opportunity.