4 ms·

Health includes some component of hope and perception of security. It’s not clear to me that a person living check-to-check in a rented property with no stable

Health includes some component of hope and perception of security. It’s not clear to me that a person living check-to-check in a rented property with no stable income can remain healthy without economic stability. For better or worse, Wall Street news pervades our perception of whether times are good or bad.

davidw 7y ago
I'd focus on the immediate needs like food and rent and let stocks take care of themselves once things are better. Food and rent are a much more real and present anxiety than stock prices, even if the latter certainly does affect the 'mood'.
- azinman2 7y ago
  Except if you’re unemployed, you might have to sell stock to focus on food and rent.
  - munk-a 7y ago
    I'd be concerned for your financial stability if you need to liquidate assets as soon as you might miss out on two weeks' pay. There are a lot of people that will really struggle in the coming weeks or months, but the venn diagram of those folks and people with a significant presence in the stock market is really quite small.
    - azinman2 7y ago
      Not sure where you're getting 2 weeks pay from. Many in the professional class will lose their jobs in a contracting market (there will be losers), and finding a new job will take much more than 2 weeks. In the mean time, there's still rent/mortgage to pay amongst other expenses. Not everyone keeps a lot of cash liquid. There's also a difference between selling some stocks and liquidating your portfolio. It's not all one or the other.
  - davidw 7y ago
    Uh, most of those people don't have stocks in the first place.
munk-a 7y ago
I really strongly disagree. This narrative is aggressively pushed and everyone from the president to folks on Wall Street think that market health is everything to everyone, but people with no skin in the game really don't care. A lot of Americans have no idea what a DOW even is and only know the stock market as "that place where folks gamble". Additionally those folks with mutual funds are mostly ignorant to the market as well - only those really close to end of life and suffering a financial crisis really need to evaluate how much money they may be able to draw out quickly.
- admiral33 7y ago
  You are underestimating the massive amounts of layoffs that have been happening in the past week and a half. That's the market dying. It's not just stocks. If valuation goes down, that usually means less revenue coming in, which means less money to pay employees, which leads to them getting fired, which leads to less spending, which leads to less revenue going in...
  - munk-a 7y ago
    Oh, the layoffs are terrible and a lot of people are in a really bad place - please don't read my statement above as implying the everything is honky dory for everyone. It's just, these two things aren't connected - the market can tail spin or be in a huge surge and things don't really change for most folks on the ground - a few more or a few less yachts are built. Valuation going down doesn't cause less revenue to come in - less revenue coming in will cause valuation is going down, but a lot of other things (including paniced sell offs, speculation, and everyone and their brother learning what "shorting" is) cause the valuation to go down as well. The economy is in trouble, but the stock market is only an indicator of the economy, not a vital component of it - so America cares that layoffs are happening, America doesn't give a hoot that the DOW is bearish or bullish.

davidw 7y ago

I'd focus on the immediate needs like food and rent and let stocks take care of themselves once things are better. Food and rent are a much more real and present anxiety than stock prices, even if the latter certainly does affect the 'mood'.

azinman2 7y ago
Except if you’re unemployed, you might have to sell stock to focus on food and rent.
- munk-a 7y ago
  I'd be concerned for your financial stability if you need to liquidate assets as soon as you might miss out on two weeks' pay. There are a lot of people that will really struggle in the coming weeks or months, but the venn diagram of those folks and people with a significant presence in the stock market is really quite small.
  - azinman2 7y ago
    Not sure where you're getting 2 weeks pay from. Many in the professional class will lose their jobs in a contracting market (there will be losers), and finding a new job will take much more than 2 weeks. In the mean time, there's still rent/mortgage to pay amongst other expenses. Not everyone keeps a lot of cash liquid. There's also a difference between selling some stocks and liquidating your portfolio. It's not all one or the other.
- davidw 7y ago
  Uh, most of those people don't have stocks in the first place.

munk-a 7y ago

I really strongly disagree. This narrative is aggressively pushed and everyone from the president to folks on Wall Street think that market health is everything to everyone, but people with no skin in the game really don't care. A lot of Americans have no idea what a DOW even is and only know the stock market as "that place where folks gamble". Additionally those folks with mutual funds are mostly ignorant to the market as well - only those really close to end of life and suffering a financial crisis really need to evaluate how much money they may be able to draw out quickly.

admiral33 7y ago
You are underestimating the massive amounts of layoffs that have been happening in the past week and a half. That's the market dying. It's not just stocks. If valuation goes down, that usually means less revenue coming in, which means less money to pay employees, which leads to them getting fired, which leads to less spending, which leads to less revenue going in...
- munk-a 7y ago
  Oh, the layoffs are terrible and a lot of people are in a really bad place - please don't read my statement above as implying the everything is honky dory for everyone. It's just, these two things aren't connected - the market can tail spin or be in a huge surge and things don't really change for most folks on the ground - a few more or a few less yachts are built. Valuation going down doesn't cause less revenue to come in - less revenue coming in will cause valuation is going down, but a lot of other things (including paniced sell offs, speculation, and everyone and their brother learning what "shorting" is) cause the valuation to go down as well. The economy is in trouble, but the stock market is only an indicator of the economy, not a vital component of it - so America cares that layoffs are happening, America doesn't give a hoot that the DOW is bearish or bullish.