Poll: Stay the course or Sell it All. May 2020

[aja8888]

There will still be demand for products, even if the demand is in different areas because of behavior change. If you are invested in the broad market, you should capture this increase in demand and profit along with the losses in the bad stuff (cruise lines, etc.)

By my estimates, there are still something like 6,999,300,000 consumers out there after the 700,000 COVID deaths. We have lost 1/100 of 1% of the world consumers to the virus so far.

If I was 20+ years younger (your age), I would have a lot more aggressive position in my way of thinking about the future of markets. However, I don't have a decade to wait out a serious pullback in equities.

Yes there are 7 billion people in the world and they will consume goods and services, but maybe not at a rate to be 70% of their country's GDP like here in the U.S.

 

[RobbieB]

I'm sure the capitolists will have all this figured out to their best advantage.

 

[Sunset]

Today we drove along and noticed one restaurant we've gone to is closed, space available for rent.

It was pretty easy to see the reason, most restaurants that only had indoor seating are really struggling, as they didn't do take-out.
So they figure they can switch to curb-side take-out, a big problem for them is nobody knows they are doing it.
Since nobody comes to the restaurant, they can't learn there is now take-out available.

Our restaurant only had indoor seating, worse it was a buffet restaurant.

I'll bet most "China Buffet" , "Mongolian Wok" , "Sweet Tomatoes" , "Country Buffet" , Duff's , which in my experience are all indoor buffet type restaurants will end up bankrupt.

We've barely scratched the surface of the economic damage , so I fully expect the market will tank when reality catches up to the fun of "free" money.

 

[Mr. Tightwad]

Sweet Tomatoes already has shut down permanently.

 

[SecondCor521]

You are all unique (Life of Bryan quote)!

I'm not!

 

[Badger]

I dropped my equity holdings significantly awhile back. I have to admit it's been hard dealing with FOMO, but I've always believed in not investing in things you don't understand. And I don't understand the market anymore, with the Fed propping it up and debt heading into the stratosphere. I've got enough that I'm comfortable with the smaller equity portion, and am willing to wait it out until I don't feel like the game is rigged. People say don't fight the Fed, but IMO the Fed is in uncharted territory and is praying things will work out. If it does I will miss out on some growth, but as the "pay off the mortgage" people always say, this will allow me to sleep at night (with a nice nap in the afternoon).

+1 Not everyone is in accumulation phase. Sometimes it makes sense to hold on to what you have.


Cheers!

 

[TechLead]

You can’t continue to run deficits, sell debt or print money rather than be productive and sustain that over a period of time.

Holding ton of cash could be riskier than holding equities.

Dollar declined vs Gold, Stocks, Real Estate and Euro, Bitcoin etc in the last 4 months.

 

[corn18]

All of these types of threads predicting the future are useless. It's like listening to CNBC.

 

[TechLead]

All of these types of threads predicting the future are useless. It's like listening to CNBC.

Just go to google news. Type dollar and watch what you get. One negative news after other.

Currently dollar is falling. So holding cash that pays no interest right now is a *losing* game. Maybe it will change in a future. With Fed soon printing another 2-3 Trillion dollars maybe it will accelerate.

 

[VFK57]

US$ value is directly tied to our economy output (GDP) but adding newly created $trillions for the country needs, while major part of economy is still shut, we have this decline. On the top of it is competition with Euro and Yuan (for the Global Trade where we currently keep higher than actual economy output portion of reserves by Foreign countries). There are 2 other economic giants who seems already recovering from the pandemic crises. What is going to happen next is your guess as good as mine but we are surely not in same position as 2008 financial crises.

 

[pb4uski]

Today we drove along and noticed one restaurant we've gone to is closed, space available for rent.

It was pretty easy to see the reason, most restaurants that only had indoor seating are really struggling, as they didn't do take-out.
So they figure they can switch to curb-side take-out, a big problem for them is nobody knows they are doing it.
Since nobody comes to the restaurant, they can't learn there is now take-out available.

Our restaurant only had indoor seating, worse it was a buffet restaurant.

I'll bet most "China Buffet" , "Mongolian Wok" , "Sweet Tomatoes" , "Country Buffet" , Duff's , which in my experience are all indoor buffet type restaurants will end up bankrupt.

We've barely scratched the surface of the economic damage , so I fully expect the market will tank when reality catches up to the fun of "free" money.

That's consistent with my thoughts. Many restaurants were barely viable at 100% capacity.... what makes us think that they have any chance at all at 50% or 75% capacity? The worst is yet to come.

As to the market, I dunno. It seems to be a greater fool play at this point, a game that I am not interest in playing... I never liked musical chairs anyway.

 

[Markola]

Just go to google news. Type dollar and watch what you get. One negative news after other.

Currently dollar is falling. So holding cash that pays no interest right now is a *losing* game. Maybe it will change in a future. With Fed soon printing another 2-3 Trillion dollars maybe it will accelerate.

I checked it out and, you’re right, the dollar has fallen some. Maybe it will mean good things for international securities and, eventually, good things for U.S. exports. One thing about the Fed printing the world’s reserve currency is that countries and investors around the world buy them, spreading our country’s inflation risk. But the currency markets are wildly complex and unpredictable.

 

[kcowan]

There will still be demand for products, even if the demand is in different areas because of behavior change. If you are invested in the broad market, you should capture this increase in demand and profit along with the losses in the bad stuff (cruise lines, etc.)

By my estimates, there are still something like 6,999,300,000 consumers out there after the 700,000 COVID deaths. We have lost 1/100 of 1% of the world consumers to the virus so far.

But you are ignoring the delays and shifts. It will take several quarters for the adjustment to happen.

I agee that the fed printing money is deferring the impact. But I am expecting a dip when all the data becomes widely known.

 

[mamadogmamacat]

A few weeks ago IIRC it cost about $1.07 to buy a Euro, which I think was the lowest for quite some time prior to that. Today it is about $1.17.

My thoughts, based on hearing from relatives and relatives of friends in a couple European countries, is it has more to do with reaction to the news about the current unrest in the US and what that may mean for the economy. Otherwise from what I hear, Europe is in worse shape economically than we are. Will be interesting to see how the dollar fares throughout the remainder of 2020.

 

[TechLead]

A few weeks ago IIRC it cost about $1.07 to buy a Euro, which I think was the lowest for quite some time prior to that. Today it is about $1.17.

My thoughts, based on hearing from relatives and relatives of friends in a couple European countries, is it has more to do with reaction to the news about the current unrest in the US and what that may mean for the economy. Otherwise from what I hear, Europe is in worse shape economically than we are. Will be interesting to see how the dollar fares throughout the remainder of 2020.

Well Germans with *current* unemployment of 6.2%, Open Schools, Covid under control and AAA Rated Government Bonds, low debt to GDP may not completely agree with you.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

We still have some stocks, but didn't have a high percent coming into the year and I think DH sold maybe half of what we did have on one of the bounces earlier in the year.

Our retirement M.O. is more about sustainable living and low overhead than making stock market gains. We're only spending about half of what we could with SS, pensions, and fixed income investments so we don't feel any need to take stock market risks.

 

[mamadogmamacat]

Well, actually Germany was one of the countries I was referring to, specifically, the Munich area where some cousins of mine currently live, albeit they are Italian citizens. So what I am referring to are on the ground conditions, admittedly anecdotal. But there is this:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...o-coronavirus-economic-advisers-idUSKBN23U1G0

from the article: "............the slump will be prolonged if the number of new infections jumps.

The bleak outlook came after the premier of Germany’s most populous state, North Rhine-Westphalia, put the Guetersloh region back into lockdown until June 30 following a coronavirus outbreak at a meatpacking plant there....................... the German economy is seen shrinking by 6.9% this year. The council said it expects a slow recovery in the second half of the year, with gross domestic product (GDP) forecast to grow by 4.9% next year.

“This means GDP probably won’t get back to its pre-pandemic level until 2022 at the earliest,” "

 

[WyomingLife]

All of these types of threads predicting the future are useless. It's like listening to CNBC.

+1

And there, in a nutshell, is the "secret" of investing.

It's actually not a secret.

But applause nonetheless.

 

[Oilcan]

+1

And there, in a nutshell, is the "secret" of investing.

It's actually not a secret.

But applause nonetheless.

+2

 

[TechLead]

"Staying the course" counter is a bit growing in last few days.
Remaining counters are same.

 

[RunningBum]

What do you suppose a statistician would figure the margin of error is on polls around here?

 

[corn18]

What do you suppose a statistician would figure the margin of error is on polls around here?

The problem with polling on here is selection bias. Heavily populated with people who are well above average savers.

 

[ERD50]

What do you suppose a statistician would figure the margin of error is on polls around here?

The problem with polling on here is selection bias. Heavily populated with people who are well above average savers.

Yes, not really a statistical problem, a selection problem. Not only the selection from this forum, but also only from people who chose to respond. You can't really know if one subgroup is more likely to click on this thread, and if a subgroup of that just doesn't bother to take the poll.

I don't consider self-selected polls to tell us much of anything. There's just no telling if it is a representative group. You have to hedge everything with "Of those who saw and responded..."

-ERD50

 

[RunningBum]

Yes, not really a statistical problem, a selection problem. Not only the selection from this forum, but also only from people who chose to respond. You can't really know if one subgroup is more likely to click on this thread, and if a subgroup of that just doesn't bother to take the poll.

I don't consider self-selected polls to tell us much of anything. There's just no telling if it is a representative group. You have to hedge everything with "Of those who saw and responded..."

-ERD50

Yep.

 

[Chuckanut]

Y
I don't consider self-selected polls to tell us much of anything. There's just no telling if it is a representative group. You have to hedge everything with "Of those who saw and responded..."

-ERD50

Obviously, you don't work in the newsroom of the local TV stations in my area. They do Twitter polls about things like "Should 1st Amendment Freedom of Speech rights not include hate speech". No doubt a lot of thought goes into each response.

To keep us on topic, the only change in my AA was selling some bond funds and keeping the proceeds in cash equivalents. Some people may consider that an AA change and others may not. Personally, I have never separated out cash from bonds.