6 ms·
Dow falls 2,200 points, trading halted, as rate cut fails to calm markets
- loopz 7y agoNo real solutions until credible leadership takes charge. For example: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/media-resources/press-briefings https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
- WilsonPaige 7y agoAnd that would be? Michael Pence? Bernie Sanders? Joe Biden? or, dare I say it, Hilary Clinton?
- loopz 7y agoThis is a small crisis. Real leadership required.
- WilsonPaige 7y agoSomeone who can roll back the pandemic? Do you know such a leader? Perhaps we could resurrect King Canute: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide At least he could demonstrate to the great unwashed masses that sometimes even excellent leadership is no cure.
- loopz 7y agoWhen lost it's possible to emulate and learn from others, if one has an open mind. For example: https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/media-resources/press-briefings https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
- wmeredith 7y agoI don't think monetary policy is going to fix this. There is a pandemic and the ostensible leader of the free world literally got on TV and said "I don't take responsibility at all" about it. People are freaked the eff out.
- TwoNineA 7y agoLet's not forget, he called the pandemic a "Democrat hoax".
- Mountain_Skies 7y agoBoth statements are intentionally taken out of context for cheap partisan political points. Look in the mirror to see the problem and ask yourself what it is you are trying to accomplish with this behavior.
- heyoo 7y agoIn this specific case, the context is fortunately irrelevant. The statements mean exactly what they say.
- diydsp 7y agofwiw, he was referring to the botched rollout of testing, not the whole thing or the market. [n] [n] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/03/13/trump-no-i-dont-take-responsibility-for-botched-coronavirus-testing-rollout/#2f452f4046f0 https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisettevoytko/2020/03/13/trump-...
- chrisBob 7y agoWould you like to provide some context? Not the OP, but it seems that this needs a national level response, and my impression is that the President is not handling things well.
- eropple 7y agoYeah, see, no they're literally not. Like, you can see them yourself (check the sibling comment for the full-context tantrum) and the argument doesn't hang, except insofar as you can claim that a guy who's regularly sundowning at noon can't have context. Which is a fair argument for cutting your racist uncle some reluctant slack, but not your President. It's very curious how the guy's constant reality-averse shit-talking of everyone who doesn't give him everything he wants, now-now-now, is somehow not "cheap partisan points," though.
- iso1210 7y agoI reckon the Dow (and the FTSE100) are down about 35% on a month ago. After 9/11 they both fell about 10%. In 2008 the Dow dropped about 40% in a month, and about 50% in 6 months.
- r00fus 7y agoJust imagine - given the complete ineptitude at top levels - this may be just the beginning. That's the scary part. Our "just in time" economy getting destroyed by a supply chain disruption that doesn't respond to monetary policy changes.
- dang 7y agoAll: partisan flamewar is not welcome on this site, so please don't. Pouring fuel on flames is an understandable but not a helpful stress response. The idea here is to do better for as long as we can.
- supernintendo 7y agoSo we should just bury our heads in the sand and ignore President Trump's blatant lies and misinformation about a deadly pandemic because calling him out offends Republicans who are responsible for putting the deranged lunatic into power in the first place? "Hey, you know the people who are destroying the world and have spent the last four years engaging in constant vitriol toward anyone to the left of them? Please just stay calm and respect their opinion." Laughable.
- dang 7y ago"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- heyoo 7y agoI disregard this as partisan flaming. I have no partisan preference. There is a mentally disabled person in charge of the most powerful country in the western society. How on Earth can this not be on-topic on this site of highly intelligent people in such a crisis as this?
- blunte 7y agoPointing out extreme economic inequity is no more partisan than pointing out scientifically measured global temperature increases. Just because one side makes claims at odds with reality doesn't mean it's partisan to point out the absurdity of those claims.
- dang 7y agoYou might have a point if people were simply pointing out facts instead of slamming enemies and pouring on the snark. Even then, though, years of this job have taught me that everyone overestimates the overlap between their views and the pure truth, and that this effect grows, I would even say exponentially, with the intensity of one's commitment to a topic. To contribute well to a thoughtful discussion, each of us needs to take this effect into account and find some way to compensate for it.
- wonderwonder 7y agoStrangely sending an autographed chart to a news organization celebrating a quick pump of the stock market 30 minutes before close has not fixed all of our problems. There is no leadership on this issue. Health leaders are urging isolation while at the same time elected leaders from a certain party are going on TV and twitter and urging people to go out to restaurants and bars. The president has been telling his supporters that there is no problem in the US while thousands are dying in Europe. With no captain is anyone surprised the ship appears to be drifting? Pence appears to be doing his best but he is clearly handcuffed. As the situations at airports are proving there is literally zero true planning going on. No one figured out that if you announce a major travel ban that people will come flooding home from virus hot spots. Thousands of people jammed together before being released back into the US. Soon companies are going to be forced to start massive layoffs just to survive, especially the travel and retail industries. We are then going to have tens of thousands of our lowest paid and least resource secure people suddenly without jobs. The bills will continue though. The government though appears to show no regard for individuals and is instead focused only on stock market numbers. Not to mention many of these same people suddenly have kids at home with the schools closed. We need to a massive stimulus for individuals, put a moratorium on mortgage and car payments, put cash in peoples hands or this is going to get out of hand fast. Due to our so called "rugged individualism" in the US, we have lines around the corner at gun stores as people fantasize about gunning down those rendered desperate from what is going on while our European neighbors are pitching in to help each other.
- WilsonPaige 7y agowonderwonder says> "There is no leadership on this issue." There is an abundance of leadership: however, in many instances the leadership is unnecessary and/or ineffectual. One underlying problem is that those of us brought up as political science majors think they should, indeed, _must_ do something, anything! Better that they wait, watch, proceed with caution and steer within their legal limits. wonderwonder says> "Health leaders are urging isolation while at the same time elected leaders from a certain party are going on TV and twitter and urging people to go out to restaurants and bars." Here you paint with a broad brush, smearing all Republicans because of the statements/actions of a handful. Shame, shame. And if those few truly believe that the situation is not as bad as you believe, well then, what would you do? Incarcerate them? Is it not better to merely correct or chastise those who are wrong rather than use them as an instrument to slur millions of innocent people? wonderwonder says> "thousands are dying in Europe". It is about one and one half thousand dead right now. More will die of course. "Thousands"? Why exaggerate so? The situation is bad, by why alarm when alarm does no good, indeed harms? wonderwonder says> "With no captain is anyone surprised the ship appears to be drifting? Pence appears to be doing his best but he is clearly handcuffed.. Vague, poetic, and simply wrong. All those who know what to do are doing it ASAP. Pence is handcuffed because he is the vice president and has no assigned tasks other than what the President allows. He's a backup drive for the President: if the President dies Pence will be plugged in and powered up. Until then he'd be foolish to take a pro-active role. wonderwonder says> " there is literally zero true planning going on. ". Everybody who _can_ plan is planning. There is likely too much planning and not enough paying attention to what is in front of us. You are not privy to the planning (probably for good reason - people will take advantage of such situations to make themselves rich or even, dare I say, gain some obscure political advantage!-). "* I could go on but I've made my point. Better to condense your political views into a post 1/5 the length, omitting the misleading and/or false parts. Sadly, when i reread the post, I find little that does not mislead. You are clearly literate; you can pen a sentence well; you can do much better.
- blunte 7y agoNone of this really matters. What matters is when people (non-shareholders, non <1%ers) pass that tipping point which they already live so close to. They won't get paid because they'll be home sick, or told not to come in; so they won't have "hours" on their timesheets. They don't have any safety net. They will miss rent payments en masse. Small business property companies (landlords) will suddenly have a cash flow problem and won't be able to make their mortgage payments. Enough little people will stop having any money and spending any money, and all that will be left is the imaginary money in the stock market and the quantitatively-eased-up banks - none of which does anything useful for the little people. This will create a very interesting situation that truly will threaten the current way of things in certain skewed capitalist countries. What will come out of this will surely be a lot more socialist (or rather, gains being distributed more equally amongst the population instead of going to the top 0.1%). The top 0.1% will not suffer, because honestly what is the difference between 100M net worth and 1B net worth.
- Pfhreak 7y agoThis is absolutely the key - unless we rapidly deploy a safety net we're going to see hourly workers across many sectors lose their income. A sudden spike in not being able to pay rents, buy food, take care of their children. Unless we do something, we're going to see a rise in evictions, suicides, and civil unrest.
- alexmingoia 7y agoI don't understand the reasoning behind halting trade after significant drops in index value. If people significantly devalue a stock (or stocks), why would halting trade change that? Halting trade could contribute to devaluation, since it could encourage capital flight to exchanges that aren't halted or have predictable trading hours. If I knew I might not be able to trade tomorrow that's a new incentive to sell now and trade elsewhere.
- wmeredith 7y agoIt's to break the feedback loop where the only reason people are selling is because everyone else is selling.
- alexmingoia 7y agoHow does that work? After exchanges reopen, the last known trades are still sells.
- Pfhreak 7y agoHalting only happens for fifteen minutes. It's meant to be a speed bump, an opportunity to assess, "wait, do I really want to sell right now?" If the market drops a lot, they'll halt for the day. Gives leaders a chance to make adjustments.
- cosmiccatnap 7y agoMaybe but that assumed that what your haulting isn't just an algorithm set by someone...which is almost always is. The algorithm will just continue after the 15m to do what it was doing previously.
- alexmingoia 7y agoAre you referring to automated trading? How can someone sell without assessing whether they want to sell? Isn't that a contradiction? For example, if a grocery store is normally open, and I go there to buy groceries only to found out they're closed... I still need groceries. I would just be forced to wait until they're open or go get them from somewhere else. With that reasoning, I would expect halting trades to encourage capital flight to exchanges with liquidity and predictable operation. People prefer to shop at grocery stores that have predictable hours and stocked shelves.