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IdleRich

IdleRich
of course. you know how the stock market works. it's about perceived rather than actual value. sometimes those coincide, sometimes they don't.
Well there's a philosophical debate about whether the perceived value is the actual value but I don't think either of us want to get into that.

What I meant though is that I don't think your average trader hears Trump say "We are gonna be open by Easter" and thinks that it's true or a good thing. But they know they can make money out of those that do. Point is just cos the market seems to react positively to something doesn't somehow magically mean that (so-called) smart people think it's a good idea.

if he had just been up front there would have been initial panic/sell-off/losses but I strongly believe it wouldn't have been nearly as bad as the wild panic we got especially in something so based on perception, it's better to be up front about bad news and let people adjust their expectations accordingly
Completely agree. He's just utterly incapable of being honest in that way, it's against all his instincts.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
one thing that actually helps, I think, is the legacy of 2007-9

governments saw that there just isn't a choice, you have to both promise and deliver massive stimulus

especially now. 2008 was a crisis of perception/expectations. economic capacity hadn't diminished, people were just afraid to spend.

that will not be true this time. people who don't have essential jobs or can't work from home are literally physically barred from working.

the economic dislocation will be severe and it will probably go on for a long time.

the 2008 stimulus was about getting people to start spending again. this one is about ensuring people don't starve while they can't work.
 

luka

Well-known member
Rich was literally one of the top traders in the financial capital of the world when he was in his twenties. Course he knows how it works! He was doing a maths degree at Oxford at 16 when the rest of us were failing GCSEs!
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
philosophical debate about whether the perceived value is the actual value but I don't think either of us want to get into that
oh yeah, definitely not

and also I agree 100%. that's what I meant by "perception of investors' perception of the market".

I should've been more clear that I meant traders' (and large financial institutions') perception of less savvy investors perception

tho again I do think there is some real, actual market value as well to the stimulus package in that it helps to begin establishing a floor

not where the exact low point will be, but it raises it above the level of complete societal collapse, people starving en masse, etc
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
like probably a lot of it is smart $/people/firms seeing a chance to make a quick profit off dumber $ reassured by Trump/whatever

but I suspect part of it is also legit reassurance for even the smart $ that, OK, we're not going to be in Mad Max territory
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
like I don't even really follow the market closely, comparatively

but for weeks now people have already been trying to figure out where the opportunities will be coming out of this. and there will be opportunities.

obviously kinda grotesque to say when there are about to be a fucking ton of dead people, but true.

if you can compartmentalize it away from the human suffering, there's perversely something reassuring in the knowledge that people are still looking to make a buck.

like the incentives in our society are deeply, deeply fucked up, but at least there will still be a society, kinda feeling
 

Leo

Well-known member
a friend shared this...

A friend in Berlin checked in about Gabi Delgado's passing. Apparently, he died in Spain of the flu, not the coronavirus. They would not treat him because they said he had tested negative for Corona!! Tragic.
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
a friend shared this...

Yeah, the total death toll from all this surely has to include people who've not died of covid-19, but have died from diseases or injuries they couldn't get treatment for, because it's all-hands-on-deck for covid-19.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
To be clear I think that the markets are reacting genuinely to the stimulus but less so to the promise of an open country by Easter.
But I don't follow it closely at all (and I never traded stocks except as a hedge against options and futures and obviously nothing that Luka said about me above is true).
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
To be clear I think that the markets are reacting genuinely to the stimulus but less so to the promise of an open country by Easter.
yeah 100% on the same page

anyone who's not an idiot or delusional knows the Easter thing is nonsense. there are a lot of stupid people tho.
 

padraig (u.s.)

a monkey that will go ape
tbf, it's not always that they're stupid

the downside of hope - if not tempered by reality - is that it can sometimes make people who aren't stupid believe stupid things

I've run into it at work. owners or managers at clients who are hanging into this delusion that we'll be back to normal by x date.

I think they just want it so badly to be true that they convince themselves it might be.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
Frightening numbers from the US today... passed the other countries and look as though they gonna leave them way behind. You can actually see how the Repub tactics change as each bit of news appears... today the main thing is to insist that China is lying about the number of infected they have and so US isn't really number one. Of course it's a distraction from the fact that however many China has the US growth rate (and still no serious response that I see from on high) is fucking disastrous. Another line is "Well death rate is below Italy" or whatever "Shows how good our health system is" - maddening the way they swing into action on the message but do fuck all actual stuff behind it.
 
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