# Your reaction to the current (Feb 2018) fallling stock market **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 5, 2018, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265 "2018-02-05T22:54:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Mangosteen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Mangosteen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangosteen)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2018, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/41 "2018-02-07T04:57:29Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > Yesterday _ **SPY closed below $264. It hasn’t been this low since … December!** _ > > I didn’t even _know_ about the dip until I saw this thread just now. Couldn’t you have PM’ed me two weeks ago? I’ve lost a bundle just in JNJ, though its fall is due to concerns about their carcinogenic(?) baby powder rather than general sentiment. > > Miscellaneous comments: > [ul][li] _**During the eight years from Obama’s inauguration to Trump’s inauguration, the S&P500 index rose 180% (almost 13% annually).**__**Europe’s FTSE (VGK) rose just 50% (5% annually) and VPL about the same.**_ This is all in dollar terms, but I think an apples-to-apples comparison is reasonable, the Vanguard funds are dollar-denominated and available to all.[/li][li] _ **Between Trump’s inauguration and today** _ SPY, VGK, VPY have moved almost in lock-step (though _ **S&P 500 has underperformed slightly** _). The day-to-day lock-step is almost uncanny; even the falls on Friday and Monday were matched almost exactly. [/li][li] “Dollar-denominated.” A year ago the Dollar was worth 0.95€. A few days ago it dropped below 0.80€. _**A 15% decline in the value of the Dollar (compared to Euro) under Trump.**_ Not as bad a drop as BitCoin’s, but it is key to proper assessment.[/li][li] Is the dollar weakness good or bad? I don’t know and _neither do our leaders._ In the past, Secretaries of the Treasury have proudly touted a strong Dollar as good for America and good for the World. Mnuchin’s take? _He’s not sure if he wants a weak dollar or a strong dollar._ Neither is Trump.[/li][li] Bond yields continue to rise. Recall again that the long-bond interest soared 0.5% just on that distant Election Week. Exxon and Chevron have both been borrowing on the bond markets to pay their dividends. It’s hard to be too sanguine, with the tax cut card _already_ played. What’s next? The inflation card? Not Infrastructure stimulus, I think — at this point, we’d have to hope Mexico pays for it — the U.S. cannot.[/li][li] The Nikkei 225 fell 4.7% on Tuesday. FTSE recovered in the morning but is still down 1.8% on the day.[/li][li] So … all eyes turn to the panicked millionaires of the U.S.A. The market may open near Monday’s close, but what happens then? Do we empty our savings accounts to buy at bargain prices? Or get out before things get bloody?[/li][li] The weird security known as XIV (that’s VIX inverted :eek: ) fell 80% yesterday. Maybe XIV is a good buy now? :)[/li][/ul] > > I know anecdote is not the singular of data, but let’s start with you! Are you buying big-time today at this _tremendous_ opportunity? (Or did you already go “all in” on fourth street?) Dumped (wired) 10K that I had in “cash” into my Vanguard Total Stock fund first thing this morning. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2018, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/42 "2018-02-07T07:44:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Wasn’t it really cold last week? What global warming??? 😃 > > As for the stock market, I have my windows open just in case I need to jump. I’m selling everything, buying gold, and moving to Idaho. I did jump on Monday. But my house is single story, so it didn’t do me any good. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [February 7, 2018, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/43 "2018-02-07T07:46:13Z")
> [@Chimera](#): > > If you’re not planning to retire for another 20+ years and you’re putting money in your 401k, then you should be cheering for the drop. > > Because the idea is “Buy Low, Sell High”, and right now, you’re buying high. The 2008 crash, and not getting laid off in the 2008 crash, did me a lot of good. But we’re hardly in bargain territory yet. ---
**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/44 "2018-02-08T01:50:29Z")
Darn. It looks like the collapse is already over. I was hoping to make a killing when the bank stocks were $1/share again. 🙂 Oh well, another great opportunity missed. The DOW has increased so much so quickly that people aren’t used to the big numbers. So they get excited with fairly reasonable % changes. I was just hoping it would last longer. ---
**Author:** ![Chimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/8e8cbc/32.png) [@Chimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chimera)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/45 "2018-02-08T03:48:28Z")
I dunno. Various companies had already planned to spend billions on stock buy-backs, so they had the money available, or at least budgeted. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those companies spent that money to prop up their stock prices and let some of their executives and major investors cash out first. ---
**Author:** ![Machine\_Elf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/82dd89/32.png) [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/46 "2018-02-08T13:33:20Z")
> [@Doctor\_Jackson](#): > > This is the reason that dollar cost averaging (regular, fixed amount investing - like a 401k) is so powerful - when the market is down you’re buying more, when the market is up you’re buying less. I still have an 8-10 year retirement window, so I’m doing exactly nothing different. [Dollar cost averaging is not the same thing as continuous automatic investing.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averaging#Confusion) It sounds like you’re talking about the latter. The DCA term applies only when you actually have a lump sum of cash and you’re making a decision to feather it into the market over time instead of all right now. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/47 "2018-02-08T14:14:21Z")
Fortunately I’ve been shifting funds into cryptocurrencies, so I feel pretty secure. I don’t check it every day, so I better make sure. I’ll just take out my smartphone. Click on Coinbase…wait for it to open. Select “prices” and… NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I’M RUINED!!! ---
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/48 "2018-02-08T14:53:03Z")
> [@Machine\_Elf](#): > > [Dollar cost averaging is not the same thing as continuous automatic investing.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollar_cost_averaging#Confusion) It sounds like you’re talking about the latter. The DCA term applies only when you actually have a lump sum of cash and you’re making a decision to feather it into the market over time instead of all right now. True enough, but the net result is the same - evening out volatility. The concept of “averaging” cost over time is often the easier way to explain why CAI is powerful, so the DCA term gets hijacked. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/49 "2018-02-08T22:13:57Z")
Down another 1000 points today - [Stock market update, February 8](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stocks-tumbling-dow-400-163432288.html) ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/50 "2018-02-08T23:24:40Z")
My reaction with my investments? Nada. I’m 20+ years from retiring, and if I didn’t panic during the 2008 crash, I’m not going to now. Let it ride. My personal reaction: the market dropping because of good job numbers = a bunch of guys making six figures or more begrudging – nay, panicking at – the mere prospect that people making five digits might finally get a raise. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2018, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/51 "2018-02-08T23:28:58Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > What took it so long? > I’ve been through enough of these so that when I see half the columns talk about over valued stocks, and the other half talk about how it is all different this time, to know the bottom will fall out. > > I’ve moved most of my volatile investments to less volatile funds which emphasize stocks that don’t move so much and which pay good dividends. > > However I wouldn’t bet that this is the crash. I’m not sure anything happened to cause anything more than a correction. I’m expecting some trigger to cause the real crash, which will get worse when the White House acts incompetently. > Imagine how bad the Great Recession would have been if Bush had listened to the right and let the banks all fail to teach them a lesson. Pretty much this. I was expecting this to have happened last summer. I’m definitely not in panic mode, just the opposite…at least a third of my investments are geared towards stuff like this, so I’m good. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2018, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/52 "2018-02-09T02:50:03Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Fortunately I’ve been shifting funds into cryptocurrencies, so I feel pretty secure. I don’t check it every day, so I better make sure. I’ll just take out my smartphone. Click on Coinbase…wait for it to open. Select “prices” and… > > NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I’M RUINED!!! Fortunately you can still make money shooting ping pong balls out of your butt. You can get 5$ a pop on the street. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2018, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/53 "2018-02-09T18:26:15Z")
Can I react some more? Eeeeeaaaaaggggghhhhhhh. ---
**Author:** ![Raza](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/raza/32/213_2.png) [@Raza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raza)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2018, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/54 "2018-02-09T18:39:30Z")
When I saw that a couple of my stocks that had been holding up fairly well have a significant downturn today, I sold off all my individual stocks except BRKB, which seems to be holding up better than most. I’m still in SPY and some other indexes. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2018, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/55 "2018-02-09T21:27:34Z")
Stocks were ludicrously overpriced; this event cannot come as a srprise to anyone whose memory of such things extents past a few years. As to what it means? Honestly, it’s hard to say. 1. It could portend doom for the global economy, or it may not. 2. In terms of my personal investments, a correction makes effectively no difference. I am not retiring for 15-20 years. Lower stocks just means by next X number of buys will be cheaper. In the long run, this stuff matters very little. ---
**Author:** ![k9bfriender](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k9bfriender/32/3283_2.png) [@k9bfriender](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/k9bfriender)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2018, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/56 "2018-02-09T21:37:48Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Stocks were ludicrously overpriced; this event cannot come as a srprise to anyone whose memory of such things extents past a few years. > > As to what it means? Honestly, it’s hard to say. > > 1. It could portend doom for the global economy, or it may not. > > 2. In terms of my personal investments, a correction makes effectively no difference. I am not retiring for 15-20 years. Lower stocks just means by next X number of buys will be cheaper. In the long run, this stuff matters very little. It’s a game of hot potato when the market gets this inflated. It is hard, and really impossible, to pin down the exact day that things fall out, but the more volatility we see, the more likely that things will come crashing down in the near future. I am hoping that we manage to just make the necessary correction and not overreact and send everything into a nosedive. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2018, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/57 "2018-02-09T22:23:10Z")
Are there any other people here who (like me) are already retired? ---
**Author:** ![jasg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f0a364/32.png) [@jasg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasg)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2018, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/58 "2018-02-09T23:34:03Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Are there any other people here who (like me) are already retired? I retired in 2009. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2018, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265/59 "2018-02-10T01:40:01Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > Are there any other people here who (like me) are already retired? Are you heavily weighted in stocks? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-reaction-to-the-current-feb-2018-fallling-stock-market/808265.md?page=2)