Was the market just being irrational today or is there more to it

I could not understand why the market suddenly u turned after the first hour or so…and then the indexes, especially NASDAQ, never turned back.

Is there any legit news that could explain this

What do you all use to understand the market moves on a day to day basis…admittedly, it would be lagging news, and not necessarily help to time the market…yet, it will be helpful to know if there is a truly paradigm shift…Does WSJ or Barrons or Bloomberg news help in this regard ( they do need a subscription and if truly helpful, I am thinking of getting one of them if it is really helpful…if there is a reliable free source, it would be even nicer :grinning:)

Thanks,
Charlie

There’s always a lot of volatility and noise around a market crisis. METARs look at the trends, not at the day to day market noise.

Is there truly a trend change (or “paradigm shift” as you called it)? That won’t be clear for quite a while.

Wendy

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Thanks Wendy, so it was primarily just the inexplicable volatility…Do you follow the WSJ or Bloomberg or Barron or any other sources to gauge the market…Anything you feel particularly useful?

I remember you posting snippets from WSJ, so I am assuming you follow that? Do you find it particularly helpful one way or other? I am particularly interested in your thinking as you mentioned you had moved out of the market in late 2021…and so wanted to see if any of these above mentioned sources helped you in that decision.

That decision alone could have saved me a lot of money, and prevented the subsequent seemingly endless pain!

Thanks again.

… JPMorgan, Bank of America, Citigroup (C) and Wells Fargo (WFC)—the four largest lenders in the U.S. by assets—deposited $5 billion apiece. Goldman Sachs (GS), Morgan Stanley (MS) each deposited $2.5 billion while U.S. Bancorp (USB), Truist (TFC), PNC (PNC), State Street (STT) and Bank of New York Mellon (BK) each deposited $1 billion. The deposits have to stay at First Republic for 120 days and earn interest at the same rate of current depositors, according to a person familiar with the pact.

Bankers extending a helping hand to a fellow bank…it’s almost inspirational.

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Maybe trying to fight off more regulation, but they are already supervised like utilities.

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I see it more as building a firewall to keep a fire (lack of confidence) from spreading.

DB2

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I see it as operation twist where many financials get clobbered but interest rates and inflation have to be normalized. It will all play out slowly. We will think suddenly things are in crisis but the crisis is bubbling up all along.

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Millions of people (and algorithms), each with their own agendas and problems, place buy and sell orders while trying to second guess millions of people (and algorithms), each with their own agendas and problems placing orders. How rational is that? •

The market is not rational, it is an evolving fitness landscape

https://www.google.com/search?q=fitness+landscape+evolution+stuart+kauffman+pdf&newwindow=1&client=safari&rls=en&sxsrf=AJOqlzUZMIAdI-Ewa0pHFztO8xboYsEF8A%3A1679044631517&ei=FzAUZNyZH7fk7_UPxYWWoAI&oq=fitness+landscape+evolution+stuart+kauffman&gs_lcp=Cgxnd3Mtd2l6LXNlcnAQARgAMgUIIRCgAToKCAAQRxDWBBCwAzoGCAAQFhAeOggIABAWEB4QDzoFCAAQhgM6BQghEKsCOgoIIRAWEB4QDxAdOggIIRAWEB4QHUoECEEYAFD0BFikQmDsY2gBcAF4AIABkQGIAeMOkgEEMC4xNpgBAKABAcgBCMABAQ&sclient=gws-wiz-serp

The Captain

• The above is in the style of Mafalda, one of the most lovable cartoon creatures ever.

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No. Not any more than a surfer in Hawaii explaining why “this wave is bigger than that wave.”

In the Macro world, and excepting truly earthshaking (nearly always negative) news, there is no accounting for the kind of random moves. News that moves the market can be anything from interest rate changes by the Fed to an earthquake in Haiti to a rocket launch from North Korea to the rumor of a new pandemic in China. It can occasionally be good news, like big pharma capitulating on insulin pricing or a new discovery on battery components, even if those things don’t hit for months or years.

So yeah, no real logic “day to day”. Personally I do believe in “business cycles” and I get pushback for it, but I have used a modest dollop of market timing over the years and feel better for it.

The WSJ is interesting, helps fill in some background (ignore the editorial page, please!), likewise Barron’s, and I have read BusinessWeek practically my whole life for the same reason: I find it interesting. I rarely find any of them actionable, but then I must be missing something. (I just posted the story of the sharpies from Goldman and Merrill using BusinessWeek stories to front-run the markets, so somebody figured out how to do it. (https://www.sec.gov/news/press/2006/2006-53.htm)

I always hated Forbes, Fortune is largely glossy hagiography (haven’t seen it in a while, maybe it’s changed), and I hit CNBC a couple times a week, less since they moved a bunch of stuff behind a paywall. There’s always SeekingAlpha, but one of the best financial educations you can get is to get interested in Berkshire Hathaway and read some of Buffett’s annual reports. He’s a long hauler - and vastly rich. You could do worse.

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The bond market is seeing steep discounting. This is rattling non stop through the financials.

Personally, I think it was the news that the banks were willing to invest their own cash in non-FDIC insured accounts with a risky bank in order to help save it.

That sort of action, even if self-serving, builds confidence.

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@Inspired2learn, since you are inspired to learn…

When I was working, other scientists and engineers would sometimes ask me how to invest. I never, ever give investment advice. My answer was, “All of us have spent countless hours studying complex subjects that we never use in real life. In my case, the best example was Quantum Mechanics. But we all use money in real life, every single day. Doesn’t it make sense to study investing as carefully as the academic subjects?”

I studied finance, accounting and economics while working on an M.B.A. But I believe in lifelong learning (especially when money is involved) so I continued reading.

Here is a reading list, which doesn’t include the many, many hours I have spent poring over the Federal Reserve database. (Available by Googling FRED and a subject like “10 year Treasuries” or “CCC Bonds” or VIX or “Employment, male, 25-54” and hundreds of others.) I also read John Mauldin and John Hussman and Mike Shedlock and Doug Noland regularly. They provide hard data.

I have paid subscriptions to the WSJ and NY Times. But the context comes from books.

“The Intelligent Investor,” by Benjamin Graham.

“Making the Most of Your Money,” by Jane Bryant Quinn. (This is a personal finance, not an investing, book but very worthwhile.)

“Manias, Panics and Crashes,” by Kindlenberger

“This Time is Different,” by Reinhart and Rogoff

“Secular Cycles,” and “Ages of Discord,” by Peter Turchin

“The Lords of Easy Money,” by Christopher Leonard, et.al.

“The Price of Time,” by Edward Chancellor

" 21st Century Monetary Policy: The Federal Reserve from the Great Inflation to COVID-19," by Benjamin S. Bernanke

I also learned about investment from my beloved Grandma Tema, whose investing experience went back to the 1920s. When I told her I was making good money in the stock market, she said, “Yes…but is it all on paper?” Grandma and Grandpa were on a cruise to Europe in October 1929. When they arrived in Paris, they met American expatriates whose stock market wealth suddenly evaporated and couldn’t even afford a ticket home to the U.S. Grandpa never invested again, but Grandma secretly saved her household money and invested it in the stock market after World War 2, rightly anticipating the economic boom of the 1950s and 1960s. But she also lived through the nasty recessions along the way to my adulthood, especially during the 1970s.

An investor is different from a speculator. (Benjamin Graham). Speculators ask about daily swings in the market. Investors recognize that a capitalist economy has waves that result from accumulation of imbalances that (slowly or suddenly) reverse to seek equilibrium. I recognized the characteristic pattern of a stock market bubble in 2021 (especially the concentration of speculation in a few tech stocks) and got out of its way.

The METAR Board is a place to keep up-to-date on markets and the Macro economy. Lots of smart people here. But you need to put the work into getting the background so you can understand the big picture. Tease the signal out of the noise.

Wendy

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One day is not a market!

More importantly many people have made pennies worrying about the day to day instead of making dollars understanding how to invest for years on end.

The people who only take the pennies with all their worries risk losing all much quicker and risk outliving their savings.

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What a wonderful way to think about it Wendy…this way of thinking is truly priceless…That is exactly what I have now sought out to do! Losing my money was MY mistake…So, I absolutely need to learn why it happened, how it happened and most importantly… what to do to recover it, and make sure this never happens again.

Again, excellent piece of advice…precisely what I am hoping to do!

Thank you, this is very helpful!

And I believe that is the crux…I guess the years of experience helped you to easily separate the wheat from the chaff!!!

But thanks again Wendy for taking the time to help and share…People like you, other board members, Arindam/ Quill and so many others are helping in that regard…and so thank you!

Charlie

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The first step to recovering your financial security is to Live Below Your Means. (There is a LBYM Board on TMF.) The source of capital is spending less than you earn and saving the excess. Never go into debt (except for a mortgage) because interest compounds and will eat you alive. When I was working I saved 25% of my income starting in my mid-20s. Yes, I was thrifty. My colleagues called me crazy to my face. But I read the Wall Street Journal at lunchtime while they were discussing their credit card bills.

The second step is to build up an emergency fund of at least 6 months of living expenses in CASH (or cash equivalents like 3 month Treasury bills). I have had many setbacks in my life, including fire, job loss, serious illness and property damage. Setbacks are not a Black Swan in my life because they have happened repeatedly. I plan for disasters because I have experienced disasters repeatedly since I was a small child. (When my parents’ house had a night-time electrical fire that traumatized me psychologically.) An emergency fund is like having a mattress on the ground when someone throws you out a window. Cash is the essential first necessity to recovering from a setback. Don’t even think of investing (taking risks) until you have your emergency fund. That should be sacrosanct. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that a 6 month e-fund is excessive and that holding cash is an opportunity cost. They are trusting to their luck to never have these problems.

The third step is to truly understand, in your very bones, that RISK means RISK OF LOSS. Given your recent history you probably are well on your way to understanding this. Don’t let greed (or desperation to replace your lost money) tempt you into taking excess risk.

Wendy

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