Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/wall-street-selloff-turns-ugly-as-us-recession-fears-grow-b2712420.html

by hjjkjhkj • 1 year ago

166 170 1 year ago

independent.co.uk

cj• 1 year ago

Hopefully this isn't a biased take:

I think this is a unique situation because the recent moves (in my opinion) are largely a result of everyone's uncertainty around America's policies.

In other words, the recent stock moves aren't because we're seeing a bunch of companies fail to miss quarterly targets. There are no major economic indicators flashing red.

If stocks can drop that fast in a couple weeks, they can also (hopefully) rise just as fast, especially if the catalyst was some poorly timed or thought out US policy decisions. (Although there's a non-zero chance that the president continues down this road and just ignores the stock market in the short-term, which I find terrifying, along with everyone else on wall street I presume)

timewizard3• 1 year ago

There are no major economic indicators flashing red.

High levels of corporate monopolization, high levels of stock buybacks, and low to no wage growth. They've been flashing for so long people don't even recognize them anymore.

ninetyninenine3• 1 year ago

These aren’t red flags for stock market crashes just red flags for humanity. The status quo can have all these flags raised and still have rising stock prices rise.

TulliusCicero3• 1 year ago

Wage growth for lower income percentiles has actually been quite good in recent years IIRC.

simonsarris• 1 year ago

and low to no wage growth

Huh? There was "low to no wage growth" in the 80's and 90's. We do have wage growth now.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/LES1252881600Q

Wage growth for over 25 no-college earners has been even better.

high levels of stock buybacks

There's nothing economically dire, or even weird, about choosing buybacks over dividends in returning profits to shareholders. It just lets shareholders choose when to sell instead of doing it for them.

worik• 1 year ago

High levels of corporate monopolization, high levels of stock buybacks, and low to no wage growth.

Yes

But the Elephant on the sofa is a deranged President threatening important trade partners

Duh!

lazide• 1 year ago

Hah, do you think Trump can admit he messed up and change course?

voidfunc• 1 year ago

Sort of, but it won't be framed that way. It will just be "we achieved our objectives and we're moving on"

psygn89• 1 year ago

Yes after he and his friends sell their positions. Edit: I think I meant secure..

snailmailstare• 1 year ago

How did he mess up? His goal is to screw up the real economy and sell $Melania coins.

tombert5• 1 year ago

He actually sort of has? In a way.

When he failed to "repeal and replace" the Affordable Care Act on "day 1", he goes on the stage a month later and says "Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated" [1]. I found this immensely funny, because pretty much every human other than Donald Trump knew that healthcare policy was really complicated, and many people tried telling him this.

I'm hoping he goes on stage soon enough and says "no one knew how volatile tariffs could make the economy" or something. Though "volatile" might be too big of a word for him.

[1] https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/321318-trump-nobody-kn...

LastTrain5• 1 year ago

Depends on which of his various manipulators are most effective.

criddell3• 1 year ago

If the Manhattan real estate market tanks he may change course. If it doesn't affect him, he's probably not going to care.

If he does change course, he's unlikely to call it a mistake. Politicians rarely admit mistakes.

DonnyV2• 1 year ago

He will save us from the tariffs......that he created.

bdcravens2• 1 year ago

It's potentially worse, as it points to a distrust of the system, not individual companies or industries. Presumably we'll bottom out, but unless there's a dramatic change in those policies, prices will reflect the "new normal", not the previous status quo.

calvinmorrison• 1 year ago

so stocks are less related to individual company performance than they should be?

bruce511• 1 year ago

Stock prices are one of the economic indicators people love to point to, but they're also a pretty bad indicator of how things are going.

Firstly, only a small percentage of people are directly invested. A larger group is tangentially invested (through retirement funds) but that isn't applicable in the short term.

Secondly, traders (as distinct from investors) make money on volatility. So there's always short-term movement going on.

For a long time now the market is largely driven by emotion not substance. Big news event, dock of some company drops 5%. By the end of the week it's out the news and back where it started.

So yeah, the market does what the market does. It'll trend upwards, because that's what its designed to do.

There are other, more concerning indicators in play, which are more important than the stock market. Employment (or the loss thereof) has a much more immediate impact. We cheer as tens of thousands are fired. Yay?

ren_engineer• 1 year ago

just cutting government spending would automatically put the US into recession, deficit spending is the only thing that has kept things going. Huge amount of job growth is either direct government hiring or indirect through businesses hiring off revenue from government contracts

cbeach2• 1 year ago

Migrating employees out of the state (which leeches economic output from the private sector) will have positive long-term economic outcomes.

darth_avocado• 1 year ago

Historic job growth means nothing if everyone needs 3 jobs to earn median household income.

AnotherGoodName• 1 year ago

The current administration has stated that the deficit spending will increase by this year.

You may have the alternate opinion due to a few million being saved in chainsaw cuts by DOGE but the proposed tax cuts are orders of magnitude higher.

danaris3• 1 year ago

It wouldn't have to be deficit spending if we raised taxes on the highest earners to levels more like what they were before Reagan.

uoaei• 1 year ago

The stock market is, put crudely, a 'vibe check' on investor sentiments more than it is any indication of economic trouble per se, so your take is more reasonable than you let on.

noleary2• 1 year ago

I am not sure I agree that we lack major economic indicators flashing red.

For instance, GDPNow from the Atlanta Fed looks quite bad at the moment: https://www.atlantafed.org/cqer/research/gdpnow

I also have been looking at deliquency rates on industrial equipment leases lately, and they seem to be trending sharply upward: https://www.fitchratings.com/structured-finance/abs/equipmen...

Major retailers are also managing expectations for the next quarters. It seems like they're bracing for soft aggregate demand.

_DeadFred_2• 1 year ago

Walmart raising alarms as well:

https://www.thestreet.com/retail/walmart-ceo-sounds-alarm-on...

Car loan delinquencies at record level: https://www.axios.com/2025/03/07/car-loan-payment-delinquenc...

bjtitus• 1 year ago

I keep seeing people post the Atlanta GDP forecast without context around the short term import imbalance.

"the January surge in imports - especially for gold - caused the model to move negative. As the Atlanta Fed noted: "the contribution of net exports to first-quarter real GDP growth fell from -0.41 percentage points to -3.70 percentage points".

Usually there would be an offsetting increase in inventories, but that is a lagging indicator. This is a short-term distortion and will balance out over the next month or so. I don't expect negative GDP in Q1." [1]

1: https://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2025/03/a-comment-on-gdpn...

bdangubic• 1 year ago

see same from 3 months ago :) shit did not fall off the cliff in a few months

throwaway5752• 1 year ago

The US is losing innovation talent, guest laborers, export markets, and allies. The federal workforce contributes to the economy, and many federal programs have strongly net positive economic impact.

We have threatened to militarily invade 3-4 countries in the last month and publicly betrayed Ukraine. We have instigated trade wars with 3, including our contiguous neighbors who have been remarkably stable friendly for a century. No country will depend on our technology if it can be removed on the whim of a single person who has demonstrated a willingness to abuse this power. Same for our defense industry. Same for military and economic alliances. Countries won't want to import our goods if the regulatory framework ensuring their quality and safety is dismantled.

I agree with you that today is more a move based on perception than a change in current fundamentals, but I also believe this the beginning of a re-rating of the US as a superpower and it has a very, very long way to run,

edit: I'm not going to vouch for the dead reply. But they jokingly say "if you need an f 35 you'll buy it" as though they missed the news this weekend https://eutoday.net/germany-concerned-over-f-35-kill-switch/. The economic impact of that program is projected to be close to $100B per year on its own beyond the value of airspace superiority. There are already signs of purchasers reconsidering.

panarky• 1 year ago

It's surreal watching all the analysts stumble around trying to explain market behavior with half-baked explanations.

One says it's tariffs, another says it's "uncertainty", a third worries about "recession", others say "inflation" or "stagflation".

But none of them show logically or quantitatively how tariffs or "uncertainty" or vague, unsubstantiated worries about recession reduce the present value of future cash flows.

Meanwhile, the new regime's playbook is clear for all to see:

Deep cuts of 50% of more to government employment, selective default on government obligations, convert formerly independent institutions to ideological organs, devaluation of the dollar, and picking winners and losers based on ideology and diktat instead of merit and market forces.

If this is the playbook, who would want to own a broad basket of US equities instead of the politically favored names?

Why can't analysts connect the dots?

Swizec• 1 year ago

reduce the present value of future cash flows
Deep cuts of 50% of more to government employment, selective default on government obligations, convert formerly independent institutions to ideological organs, devaluation of the dollar, and picking winners and losers based on ideology and diktat

All of these reduce the present value of future cash flows by reducing said future cash flows. Like a sibling poster said: If the government stops spending, the US economy is screwed. The US is a lot less "free market" than most realize. Much of the economy is propped up by various subsidies at the raw inputs level.

Also when you choose winners and losers by diktat, this inadvertendly reduces the present value of future cashflows for any company that doesn't get picked.

WorkerBee28474• 1 year ago

none of them show [how uncertainty etc.] reduce the present value of future cash flows.

They don't reduce the value of future cash flows, but they reduce the certainly of future cash flows that are discounted to present value. Additionally it's widely demonstrated that people will accept lower returns for lower risk/volatility. That's why T-bill have the lowest return, then bonds, then equities.

abirch• 1 year ago

The present value of future cashflows is vague at best. The market was overpriced and is correcting now. Look at the Shiller PE.

ac294• 1 year ago

selective default on government obligations

Which obligations has the government defaulted on?

ozim• 1 year ago

Have you seen what was going on when Trump win was confirmed?

Stocks that day shot up. Now it is correction time both on going back to indicators instead of hype and correction based on newly elected administration actions instead of people hopes.

burkaman• 1 year ago

I noticed this with Tesla, at a glance it looks like it is in freefall, but it's actually just returned to the relatively stable level it was at before the election. It seems like investors were hoping Elon would be able to leverage his position for some kind of large-scale corruption in Tesla's favor, and are now deciding that isn't going to happen.

immibis4• 1 year ago

My impression, as someone who bought USA index funds after the Trump election, and then sold them (at a loss) a few days ago, was that the Trump administration would do everything it can to funnel money from average people to investors. My impression now is that the Trump regime is too incompetent to achieve that, and might even just throw away the USA's exorbitant privilege of being the global reserve currency.

Note that being the global reserve currency is the same thing as having a colossal trade deficit, and that a colossal trade deficit is the same thing as a colossal surplus of goods and services. I wonder if Trump thinks it's bad just because of the word "deficit".

[e^iπ]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exorbitant_privilege

scarface_74• 1 year ago

This is the only administration that will be able to get away with being this incompetent hopefully. Even if the stock market does go in a free fall this administration, in four years, it should start recovering. Looking at the rest of the leading Republicans, most of them are spineless. But don’t have the same belief system as Trump. You didn’t see any of them parroting Trump’s economic policies during the primaries.

As long as you have at least a ten year time horizon - and you should if you are investing in the broad stock market - you should be fine.

From a completely selfish standpoint, the stock market being down is great - it’s time to buy.

I do feel sorry (not really) for anyone who invested in Tesla. Its brand value is shit globally and the fundamentals aren’t good.

rat874• 1 year ago

especially if the catalyst was some poorly timed or thought out US policy decisions.

Is there any indication this will change or that worse decisions won't come out next week?

Yoric2• 1 year ago

Well, the fact that Trump is breaking all the treaties one after the other are certainly not encouraging for markets, but there are also many signs that suggest that:

1. Trump is planning to deflate the dollar (not the least of which being that this his Secretary of Treasury wrote a plan to do this); 2. Trump might be planning to re-negotiate the US debt, for what I believe is the first time in history.

Neither is the kind of thing that the markets enjoy seeing. After all, if the dollar is deflated by 50% (I'm inventing that number), all the money invested in Wall Street suddenly loses 50% of its value.

Also, I've read a few economists, and they seem to agree that the prosperity of the US is largely a bubble based on the (artificially) strong dollar, but that the same strong dollar is killing US exports. By these accounts, Trump's maneuvers are an attempt to pop that bubble, which might be good, but will destroy the prosperity bubble, which nobody really wants. Whether it's true or not, that hypothesis is a good reason to not invest in US economy.

And none of these three points can be fixed easily.

rat874• 1 year ago

Also, I've read a few economists, and they seem to agree that the prosperity of the US is largely a bubble based on the (artificially) strong dollar, but that the same strong dollar is killing US exports. By these accounts, Trump's maneuvers are an attempt to pop that bubble, which might be good, but will destroy the prosperity bubble, which nobody really wants. Whether it's true or not, that hypothesis is a good reason to not invest in US economy.

Not a bubble, can argue what artificially means but crashing the economy to get slightly more manufacturing is obviously bad short and long term

koonsolo• 1 year ago

Belgian here: I'm moving away from US products and services, wherever possible. My close contacts are doing the same. And have you seen the Canadians? They are at another level!

Also, buying US military equipment will definitely need to be reconsidered, if you look at how fast your position can switch. Tesla and Starlink, good luck getting any new orders outside of US.

This is not some temporary one off, this is party moving away from US products (good luck getting us back once we found a good replacement), and party the idea that US can turn on you with a single stupid election.

This damage will take a long time to recover from. We really consider this a friends betrayal.

chneu3• 1 year ago

I don't think a lot of Americans realize that this might be the real end of the post WW economic/military dominance for the US.

The world has never been less confident in the US. Much of our world dominance was based on protection and inclusion in our economic dominance.

xnx2• 1 year ago

If stocks can drop that fast in a couple weeks, they can also (hopefully) rise just as fast,

“Trust takes years to build, seconds to break, and forever to repair”

ac294• 1 year ago

The average bear market lasts less than a year and we aren't even in a correction.

oliwarner• 1 year ago

they can .. rise just as fast

That's not how confidence scares work though. A panicked flee from the market doesn't end with somebody going "oh it'll be okay", it's a very different buyer trying to buy the dip.

My point is this will be different people, different money, and likely not as fast to return as it leadenly dropped out.

ethan_smith• 1 year ago

This isn't just about policy uncertainty. Looking at the hard data (Atlanta Fed GDP forecasts, rising delinquency rates on industrial equipment leases, and major retailers' warnings), there are actual economic indicators flashing red. While sentiment certainly matters in markets, we're seeing legitimate signals of weakening fundamentals beyond just reaction to policy shifts. We live in a world that is way more fragmented than it was 5 years ago. The market isn't just responding emotionally - it's pricing in real economic risks.

jaybrendansmith• 1 year ago

So everything was going great, with some of the best employment and GDP numbers we've ever had, and now suddenly every economic indicator is flashing red. But let's not ignore the elephant in the room: That the President and his administration is behaving erratically, scaring the free world, breaking with 75 years of foreign policy, threatening abusive tariffs, threatening people's livelihoods and ability to stay working in this country. And let's not ignore the fact that the most damaging 3 things you can introduce to an economy are: Political instability, a harmful Fiscal Policy, and Tariffs.

mberning• 1 year ago

To be fair I think this is long overdue. The fundamentals do not support the price of many stocks. Recently Tesla had more market cap than Toyota and many other established brands combined. No way in hell that is believable.

riku_iki8• 1 year ago

Tesla is way better positioned than Toyota in likely upcoming EV world, so capitalization is result of future expectations.

LastTrain5• 1 year ago

Yeah yeah. Diagram that out to its conclusion for us. The future where Tesla is producing more cars than Toyota at higher margins. What year will that happen?

ManuelKiessling• 1 year ago

But not like this. In no current or future world is there a basis for THIS:

https://www.voronoiapp.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn...

skyyler• 1 year ago

BYD is also better positioned than Toyota for an upcoming EV world, so there has to be something else going on.

FredPret2• 1 year ago

This is true but then there are giant corporations earning giant profits trading at a PE < 10.

It's only sexy stocks that people get excited by that go to the moon on a paper kite.

For example:

- Comcast (does the public hate them? yes. does the public send them ~$35B in revenue every damn quarter? also yes): PE 8.7 (https://valustox.com/CMCSA)

- JP Morgan, 5th largest bank in the world, biggest bank in the USA. Is banking risky? Yes. Is JP Morgan going to evaporate? Hell no. PE: 11.7.

- General Motors. Setting the world ablaze? No. Going anywhere in the next 20 years? Probably not. Look at their revenue trend. (https://valustox.com/GM) PE: 7.4.

- United Airlines. Yes, they break guitars. Yes, airlines have been a risky bet. But their PE ratio is 8.1. (https://valustox.com/UAL) When you buy cheap, risk is low.

If you see a company's products everywhere but you never hear about their stock, your bargain-stock spidey senses should kick in. When it's the inverse, I stay far away.

slaw2• 1 year ago

Stock market bubble started slowly deflating. When is housing market bubble going to deflate?

ericmay3• 1 year ago

Well the issue with housing doesn't seem to be a "bubble" in the same sense. It's moreso we aren't building enough housing so the supply is limited.

With higher rates the monthly price is higher too which is contributing to un-affordability. But if rates go down then monthly payment prices would go down, which would cause prices to go up.

If rates go down because there's a substantial recession home prices may go down but many people may be out of jobs or unwilling to sell.

alfalfasprout• 1 year ago

It becomes a bubble when suddenly people who paid a fortune for mortgages at sky high prices aren't able to pay them anymore. Or demand falls.

The market is currently tight but on both supply and demand. No one with a 2% mortgage wants to move. No one wants to buy at 6% interest.

velcrovan2• 1 year ago

When supply catches up to demand.

https://www.realtor.com/research/us-housing-supply-gap-2025/

riku_iki8• 1 year ago

One speculation is that it will not deflate, because government has many T of debt -> need to service it -> need to print more money for that -> inflation and market gain.

bdcravens2• 1 year ago

I can't see how housing prices can drop substantially without the economy being in a rough spot. Banks will have a hard time writing home equity loans, underwater investors will tighten their belts, and worker mobility will be challenged as home owners (who have purchased in the past few years) can't sell their homes. The better hope is for prices to stagnate and incomes to rise. (not a great prospect, but better)

kart23• 1 year ago

Not for at least 10 years because government is propping up house prices with their holdings of MBS, although market has definitely softened in some places.

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/WSHOMCB

hnpolicestate2• 1 year ago

I can tell you if you're talking about urban centers like NYC, Chicago, Washington etc. When the United States stops immigration from wealthy immigrants. Everyone buying in my area are Chinese, Arab or Indian immigrants with far more money than the native population. They are propping up home values. Would have popped by now.

r00fus• 1 year ago

Since 2009 banks have been able to ignore "mark to market" rules thus allowing them to keep unrealistically high valuations on deflating properties.

throw0101b3• 1 year ago

"Sadly" I don't really have much cash on the sidelines to buy more equities as prices dip as I generally don't try to time to market / buy the dip:

* https://ofdollarsanddata.com/even-god-couldnt-beat-dollar-co...

I'm not generally 100% equities, often 80/20, so things will be rebalancing on their own at least at least:

* https://canadiancouchpotato.com/model-portfolios/

* https://www.finiki.org/wiki/Asset_allocation_ETF

* https://www.moneysense.ca/save/investing/etfs/one-etf-portfo...

I have a few more decades until retirement, so buying low now would be nice.

fn-mote• 1 year ago

[...] buying low now would be nice.

Just to be clear, the point of the linked article is that you cannot know that now is the LOW and not the new high.

michaelscott3• 1 year ago

That's the premise yeah, but it makes sense to buy more on red days

throw0101b3• 1 year ago

Just to be clear, the point of the linked article is that you cannot know that now is the LOW and not the new high.

And even if you did know ahead of time when the dip would occur, this article show it's still generally best to DCA instead of sitting in cash:

* https://ofdollarsanddata.com/even-god-couldnt-beat-dollar-co...

ARandumGuy2• 1 year ago

That's why the phrase "don't try and catch a falling knife" exists. We have no idea if prices will rebound shortly, or continue to take a nose-dive. Trying to time the market is a gambling strategy, not an investment strategy.

michaelscott3• 1 year ago

"After the 25% YoY of the last 2 years, the bubble has to burst this year", I thought to myself in Jan. It looks like keeping some cash in the wings waiting was the right move. I think we'll see a nastier crash still though

timewizard3• 1 year ago

Buried in the center of the article:

“Many people have been worried about elevated valuations among US equities for some time and looking for the catalyst for a market correction.

The writing has been on the wall for 6 months now, depend on what sectors you care about, the technocrats from both sides have juiced this dilapidated system to it's breaking point.

knowaveragejoe• 1 year ago

That's weird. I was assured that the adults are in charge now.

ninetyninenine3• 1 year ago

Adults are just children with more money.

ta1243• 1 year ago

the adults are in charge now.

The adulterers maybe.

They're acting like a bunch of kids smashing up the toys so nobody else can play.

disqard• 1 year ago

Maybe they're shit-scared of the bully from two streets over, who made them promise to break all of their own toys, or else...

timetraveller26• 1 year ago

Manchilds are, by definition, adults.

nabaraz• 1 year ago

S&P 500 is barely down (~9% as of this post) after returning 23% and 24% respectively in 2023 and 2024. I wouldn't call it ugly, as someone who lived through recession.

michaelscott3• 1 year ago

Agreed, this seemed inevitable. And as a bull, I don't even think we're close to the bottom for the year

velcrovan2• 1 year ago

So… you're not a bull then

jandrewrogers• 1 year ago

A major correction also isn't that surprising. I started planning for it six months ago. The current market behavior is what I'd call "in model". It can always get much worse but this isn't that.

rsanek• 1 year ago

As the adage goes, time in market beats timing the market.

ac294• 1 year ago

A correction has a specific meaning (drop of >10%). We aren't there yet with regards to the SP500. I think it would be more accurate to call this above average volatility.

FartinMowler• 1 year ago

It's the Biden sell-off. /s

loudmax• 1 year ago

You jest, but that's absolutely how the MAGA folks talk about it in their echo chamber. It's an alternate reality.

stego-tech3• 1 year ago

Liquidated my speculative longs two weeks ago in anticipation of such a downward swing. Valuations have been divorced from reality for years, and I'm hoping this is a long overdue reckoning for the whole market. Seeing some stocks disproportionately impacted also suggests the market is preparing for a chaotic few years ahead, as the US administration flatly admits they don't care what businesses think about policy choices like tariffs or gutting of the Federal Government, nevermind the brewing constitutional crises.

Put simply, I do not see meaningful and consistent value in the US Economy for the next four to six years. I'm doing research on taking my longs into index funds or positions in other markets that have a diversified economy (and not mostly services/imports, like the USA) and will be steaming away from their dependence on the American market in the following years. If I invest into anything domestic, it'll likely be companies reshoring parts of the supply chain and retracting outsourcing.

hnpolicestate2• 1 year ago

Is it possible that wall streets economic interests were not aligned with the interests of U.S citizens? One could argue we are now so down the road of globalization that any attempt to pull back would cause economic disaster. I think probably yes.

The wealthy make their money in the market, while the poor rely on wages whose dollar keeps decreasing in value. I get the 401k angle too. But for too long the wealthy have prospered through dividends while the plebs can't afford rent, let alone a house.

redlock• 1 year ago

This is my observation as well. Recent market gains doesn't reflect how inflation eroded most people purchasing power.

People today are worse off than before Covid even though the market is much higher.

Debt fueled growth (through quantitative easing and deficit spending) is not healthy and always has a bad ending.

Real economic growth is what was seen between 1950 and 1970 where purchasing power increased and most of the gains went to the middle class.

rat874• 1 year ago

Is it possible that wall streets economic interests were not aligned with the interests of U.S citizens?

Yes

but current administration and policy is terrible for almost everyone. Globalization has in general benefited poor and rich countries very broadly while hurting a few workers in certain industries. Trying to reverse that is largely futile and will double down on the bad sides of protectionism while not doing much to "bring back" jobs that moved abroad or became more automated.

chistev• 1 year ago

I just want my XRP to rise again

system2• 1 year ago

I think with the stocks bounce back again soon crypto will also get a nice pump as well. The cryptos are now totally aligned with stocks, not like what we used to have.

ChrisArchitect• 1 year ago

[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43322776

TrackerFF• 1 year ago

US tech companies are almost all down YTD.

European defense companies are killing it.

immibis4• 1 year ago

European defense companies are killing it.

By which, we mean, +120% in the last 6 months (Rheinmetall A.G.). Not +20%, but +120%.

9283409232• 1 year ago

I've been operating on the theory since the election, before Trump took office, that Musk and his cabal of billionaires are trying to force a recession so they can buy it all up for pennies on the dollar. Elon Musk directly said "prepare for hardship." Everything that has happened since then has just given me more confidence in my prediction.

sampton• 1 year ago

Back paddling on the tariffs without any concessions is more damaging the tariffs themselves. It shows the leadership is uninformed and the economy is very weak. Way to flash your weak hand in the first round.

tombert5• 1 year ago

He's a pretty objectively terrible businessman.

Like, that's the part that annoys me about him more than anything else, how he's convinced a lot of people that he's "good at business". He's not; if he had just dumped the money his father left him into basically any index fund between the 1970's until 2016, he would have made more money than he had in 2016.

Any idiot can basically match the S&P500, just buy VOO or SPY or something, so I don't consider you a "good" businessman if you don't beat the S&P.

So it doesn't surprise me that he is uninformed and doesn't know how to negotiate.

lawn• 1 year ago

He inherited billions and still manages to go bankrupt 6 times.

The Apprentice was the OG reality distortion field and it's crazy people have trouble seeing through it all.

xnx2• 1 year ago

He doesn't realize he can't put he US in Chapter 11.

rufus_foreman• 1 year ago

> if he had just dumped the money his father left him into basically any index fund between the 1970's until 2016, he would have made more money than he had in 2016

Some investors actually spend money in addition to investing it.

If you earn a high return on your investments every year and then go out and spend the returns on things like a $100 million private jet and a $25 million helicopter instead of reinvesting them, you don't beat the S&P. Does that mean you are a "bad" businessman? To me, to determine if someone is a good businessman, you need to look at what they took out and spent along with what they ended up with.

Not every rich investor is someone like Charlie Munger, who weeks before his death at the age of 99 was upset that if he had worked harder, he "might have had multiple trillions instead of multiple billions". Some people make money to spend money.

HDThoreaun• 1 year ago

No, the tariffs wouldve been truly horrendous. Back pedaling is much better.

Akarnani• 1 year ago

if we are not going to export dollars, and we are going to make countries spend more of thier own money, then thier cost of borrowing will go up, they will need to rotate out of dollar assets and then traders who use the carry trade will need to unwind them as the source of borrowing (other countries very low interest rates) are no longer very low, as we now see in UK, Germany, and Japan—each hitting very fast highs for interest rates for their govt debt.

It's much more straightforward math then reading of political or vibes tea leaves.

biofox• 1 year ago

Not knowing much economics, I'm struggling to parse this sentence. ELI5 please?

chneu3• 1 year ago

A lot of the value of the USD is that it's the defacto currency for oil and other markets.

Other countries do business in dollars. This makes the dollar valuable as a trade currency. This means large foreign governments like(and need) to hold large amounts of USD.

The confidence in the USD is dropping very quickly, especially in Europe and Asia. This means countries will move to do business in other currencies, as those currencies will be viewed as more stable(or whatever other reason).

nextworddev• 1 year ago

You know people are long and losing money when AI twitter is quiet

yard2010• 1 year ago

What a great time to enter the market!!

Wall Street sell-off turns 'ugly' as US recession fears grow

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