Coronavirus/Economy/Stock Market

[Coronita]

If you make it to the end of this year alive and healthy that’s already a pretty good win.

As an added bonus,

If you still are employed with little to no impact on your income, that’s also a win.

If your passive income has stayed the same or close to it, IE people are still paying you rent, that’s also a win.

If your portfolio is break even or you can eke out a gain, that’s also a win.

And if most of the above all is true, count your blessings and have a drink. Most other people probably are not as lucky as you.

As far as everything else, pass time by doing the things you’ve been procrastinating with. I’ve made a lot of progress with my garage and cleaned it up finally since moving in more than year ago. Added new shelves, sorted out a bunch of stuff. There’s all these tools, parts, etc that I bought that I forgot I had. And there’s two project cars I’m in the middle of restoring. Kid is picking up photography, which is great because I stopped using my D-SLR for a long time. Glad it’s being used.

[The-Shoveler]

yea. Just hope everything gets back to normal soon.
Market up on new treatment progress.

I really miss being able to dine out LOL.

I was WFH about 1/2 the time anyway before so that part is not so different.

[spdrun]

There’s no actual rule in NYC against going outside, though, and people are still going outside. Parks are still open.

Maybe thankfully, the virus is still spreading, albeit more slowly and petering out. Mass testing in NYC now shows about 25% of people exposed from 3-4 weeks ago (due to delays in development of antibodies). Error bound is probably +- 5%, so 20-30%. Hopefully, we’ll see 50% or more immunity in the next month — at that point, the thing will have difficults finding non-immune hosts with even basic hygiene measures.

Cuomo isn’t talking about herd immunity explicitly, but is de facto, since he’s said that 40 to 80% of people will get this, and he wants to keep reproductive number between 0.8 and 1.2 (linear spread).

My problem with what the state has done is that they haven’t done enough to protect the truly vulnerable. Thousands (up to 5000) of the deaths in NY have been in nursing homes. A state policy in March required hospitals to discharge COVID + patients back to nursing homes. This kind of policy is criminal, and I hope the people responsible for it stand trial.

[Coronita]

[quote=The-Shoveler]yea. Just hope everything gets back to normal soon.
Market up on new treatment progress.

I really miss being able to dine out LOL.

I was WFH about 1/2 the time anyway before so that part is not so different.[/quote]

I don’t. I never really ate out. Not really a foodie…Even after bans are lifted, I really don’t want to eat any prepared food that I didn’t personally nuke in the oven or stove myself. But that’s just me. Don’t plan on attending any indoor venues either until we got confirmation either there is no second wave of infections or if the second wave is small. I’m sure others will feel the same way.

I wouldn’t worry about the economy, in your case. A good portion of the tech sector seems to be doing ok. The biggest impacts seem to be in the service businesses and hospitality and things hanging off of those things.

[spdrun]

The tech sector doesn’t exist in a vacuum … service business owners and employees are a market for their products and services. Once temporary unemployment and bridge loans run out…

If a large portion of the population stops using service businesses because of fear of being infected (even after “reopening”), this will have knock-on effects that will come months to a year from now.

FOR NOW, certain segments of tech are doing well because there was a buying surge — people needed equipment and services to be able to work from home. This many be balanced out by increased unemployment and underemployment in the near future.

[Coronita]

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[Coronita]

Sure, if you say so. Nevermind. I’ll say what people want to hear so everyone can feel equal. Everyone is screwed (not really), but I’ll say it anyway. IT support and consulting probably impacted though. it was heavily commoditized even before the virus. We’re in the process of trying to kick out one consulting firm supporting one business because internally it could be done with FTE’s for much cheaper.

I think those that were buying things when oil went negative will be handsomely awarded in the long run. Not just oil, but when everything was tanking out of fear. Good job folks. lol

[spdrun]

I’m not discussing IT support at all, BTW, haven’t been in that world on a serious level for a few years now.

I’m only discussing products and services. This thing created an initial surge of demand due to WFH requirements, but this doesn’t mean that the surge is sustainable.

Businesses need customers to continue buying products and services. If the virus scares customers away from (e.g.) restaurants, they won’t be buying audio systems, won’t be paying for cloud reservation management systems as much, won’t be paying for builders to fix their dining rooms, won’t be paying for signage, won’t be paying for Office365, etc. Delivery can be done from a commercial kitchen in a back alley of an industrial area, why have a restaurant at all? Delivery services like Uber Eats may be net winners, but staffing levels may be lower, so there will be a ripple effect.

It’s not just one industry; I’m using restaurants as a simple example, since everyone is talking about it. It’s also not even about rules. I suspect that even after distancing rules formally go away, customers won’t be comfortable being close to others for months or more.

[ltsddd]

[quote=Coronita]I think those that were buying things when oil went negative will be handsomely awarded in the long run. Not just oil, but when everything was tanking out of fear. Good job folks. lol[/quote]

If you’re not a buyer during the last a couple months. You’re not trying.

[FlyerInHi]

[quote=ltsddd][quote=Coronita]I think those that were buying things when oil went negative will be handsomely awarded in the long run. Not just oil, but when everything was tanking out of fear. Good job folks. lol[/quote]

If you’re not a buyer during the last a couple months. You’re not trying.[/quote]

What were those things you bought?

[ltsddd]

[quote=FlyerInHi][quote=ltsddd][quote=Coronita]I think those that were buying things when oil went negative will be handsomely awarded in the long run. Not just oil, but when everything was tanking out of fear. Good job folks. lol[/quote]

If you’re not a buyer during the last a couple months. You’re not trying.[/quote]

What were those things you bought?[/quote]

Moved most of my cash into the stock markets. Left some cash for a down payment for a house. The money that were already invested in the markets were shifted from safer “value” mutual funds to small caps. So far it has worked out quite well (or as well it can be given how much the market tanked in early March).

[Coronita]

[quote=ltsddd]
Moved most of my cash into the stock markets. Left some cash for a down payment for a house. The money that were already invested in the markets were shifted from safer “value” mutual funds to small caps. So far it has worked out quite well (or as well it can be given how much the market tanked in early March).[/quote]

Cool!

I nudged my bi-weekly auto investments into funds up to 40% of my bi-weekly income, up from previous auto investment of 25%. I also changed the concentration from 60/40 stock to slightly 65/35. There were a few individual stocks I picked up, nothing earth shattering though. Someone bought my old company Broadcom and made a 40% gain from the volatility over a few weeks, good for them. Seems to be working well for those that caught some of the deep discounting earlier…. Interesting times!

I’m happy to hear piggs not needing to cash out their 401k’s and retirement accounts to pay for their bills as some people unfortunately have to do. I guess we’re the lucky ones.

[ltsddd]

Got to stay nimble and creative. We’re still too often hearing folks saying “…had I bought X number of of props during the housing market downturn I would be blah blah blah”.

Well the problem is they didn’t. The opportunity was there for everyone. It came down to those who do and those who don’t. We’ll see in a couple years how this worked out.

[Coronita]

[quote=ltsddd]Got to stay nimble and creative. We’re still too often hearing folks saying “…had I bought X number of of props during the housing market downturn I would be blah blah blah”.

Well the problem is they didn’t. The opportunity was there for everyone. It came down to those who do and those who don’t. We’ll see in a couple years how this worked out.[/quote]

Exactly. I think that has to do with extreme negativity. I think you have figured out like many other people how to make lemonade out of lemons. Win win. Nice job.

For individual stocks, I’ve been moving in and out due to the volatility. AMD is one, the thing swings depending on the way the wind is blowing. There’s a few other that’s widely swings. Some of the shittiest companies have the really interesting patterns. PG&E is another example. On one day, state regulators aren’t happy, the things tanks. On another day, state regulators approve, things shoot up. And this indecisiveness goes back and forth… Though I think PG&E got off lucky with the entire coronavirus swamping CA state, people seemed to have forgotten much about PG&E.

[Coronita]

As expected. Microsoft is just killing it.

https://finance.yahoo.com/video/microsoft-coronavirus-had-minimal-net-203152009.html

“minimal impact”

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