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Businesses The Almighty Buck United States

S&P 500 Triggers Trading Halt For Third Time in Six Days Despite Fed Rate Cut (cnbc.com) 160

Stocks fell sharply on Monday even after the Federal Reserve embarked on a massive monetary stimulus campaign to curb slower economic growth amid the coronavirus outbreak. From a report: The S&P 500 dropped 9.3% while the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 2,174 points, or 9.4%. The Nasdaq Composite traded 9.3% lower. Those losses put the major averages on track for their worst day since the "Black Monday" market crash of 1987. They also eclipsed the steep decline seen on Thursday. Trading was halted for 15 minutes shortly after the open as a then 8.14% drop on the S&P 500 triggered a so-called circuit breaker. Before the open, futures contracts tied to the major averages hit their "limit down" levels, meaning they could not trade below that threshold. Those limits are imposed by the CME Group to maintain orderly market behavior. While the central bank's actions may help ease the functioning of markets, many investors said they would ultimately want to see coronavirus cases peaking and falling in the U.S. before it was safe to take on risk and buy equities again.
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S&P 500 Triggers Trading Halt For Third Time in Six Days Despite Fed Rate Cut

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  • It's brutal (Score:3, Insightful)

    by olsmeister ( 1488789 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @09:42AM (#59835272)
    I've lost as much money in the last three weeks as I make in salary for three years. Kissing early retirement goodbye at this point.
    • Really? Why did you sell? You don't sell when the market is low, you sell when it is high.

      • It's probably a paper loss.

        • by msauve ( 701917 )
          >It's probably a paper loss.

          And perhaps not even that. The market has rolled back less than 3 years. Stuff held longer than that (on average) still sees a paper profit. I suspect his "loss" figure is based on the dollar value when we were at record highs.
      • You don't sell when the market is low, you sell when it is high.

        Wow, that's some great advice, Mr Financial Wizard guy. You must have gone to Wharton.

        • Re:It's brutal (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @10:11AM (#59835438)

          Well, you know, buy stocks that go up. If they don't go up, don't buy them.

          • Shit, where were you when I was planning my retirement? Your system seems much better than my primitive system based on causal reality.

          • Depends. There's some stock that doesn't normally move all that much, but pays a decent steady dividend. Some of that stock is dirt cheap right now in last week's panic selling. Assuming of course that the company will be able to pay that dividend in the future (don't count on right now or this summer, but think next year), in other words whether they will they survive this downturn. I'd stay away from travel and airline stocks, but perhaps Shell is a good buy at the moment. Higher than normal risk rig
    • You merely put a number on the value people *believe* something to have.

      It is *literally* made-up money.

      Which should be a crime, as it causes massive damage via you paying us with that, when we do *actual real* work. De-facto STEALING our work.

      Saved up money from actual work? Put is somewhere actually safe! Not a literal gamblers' table!

      Want more money. WORK FOR IT, you leech.

      • Do you really think that it would be better to barter for "real" goods in exchange for labor? That sort of thing worked for a while, but then people decided living in houses with indoor plumbing and keeping animals and growing food was better than living in caves, shitting in a hole in the ground, and hunting when you were hungry. And that was OK for a while until people started wanting cures for disease, video games, airplanes, and to watch reruns of Seinfeld.

        If you'd prefer to live in a cave, by all mea

        • I'm not sure what you're getting at, since real money was around for hundreds of years, before they came up with this paper crap.

          And if you want to see how much better hard currency was to fiat paper, check out this chart [postimg.cc].

          The three marked dates are, earliest first: the creation of the Fed, the removal of the gold standard within the U.S., and Nixon's reneging on the international Bretton Woods gold standard.

          Each event made things worse.

          Real history and real data show that hard currency (gold, si
          • All these horrible things happened, and yet, here we are with treatments for cancer, computers, airplanes, electric power grids, mostly safe drinking water, ample food supply, etc. Your blindness is a bigger concern than paper money.

          • I'm not sure what you're getting at, since real money was around for hundreds of years, before they came up with this paper crap.

            Oh god, the gold standard person just showed up.

            Explain the distribution of gold across the entire world. Here - use this as a guideline. https://www.gold.org/about-gol... [gold.org]

            It's from the world gold council - if you think it's fake, take it up with them.

            There isn't enough Gold for the world's economy. If say, we overnight switched to the Gold standard, Everything would come to a halt, because teeny tiny amounts of gold would be worth outlandish amounts. The market would have to deal in gold on the ato

    • by ranton ( 36917 )

      This current downturn shouldn't be having a significant impact on anyone's retirement planning, unless their planning included the assumptions there would never be another recession and the longest bull market in US history wasn't likely to end sooner than later.

      As generally advice to anyone nearing retirement, if it has been a while since the last recession (more than 5-7 years or so) just reduce 20% from the worth of your stock portfolio and see if you still have enough to retire. If not, you likely aren'

    • I've lost as much money in the last three weeks as I make in salary for three years. Kissing early retirement goodbye at this point.

      I feel sorry for you [olsmeister], but... Paper profits never count in real life. And let's not forget that the GOT's plan was to convert everyone's future into paper profits in the stock market. [GOT = Gang Of Trump that replaced the defunct GOP] Amusingly enough, I've been eager to sell all my shares for several years now, but was constrained and prevented from doing so. No sense in worrying about it now, though now you've reminded me I have a 401(k), too.

      But here is my latest solution approach, though I

  • Interet Rate Cut (Score:5, Interesting)

    by phalse phace ( 454635 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @09:51AM (#59835320)

    No doubt this is being exacerbated by Fed Powell's emergency rate cut yesterday. Investors (and algos) see it as the govt knows something we don't and it's worse than we've been led to believe.

    Plus, the Fed just wasted all their bullets with 2 emergency rate cuts. Can't cut anymore unless you go negative when the recession comes.

    • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

      No doubt this is being exacerbated by Fed Powell's emergency rate cut yesterday. Investors (and algos) see it as the govt knows something we don't and it's worse than we've been led to believe.

      Investors never assume the government knows something that investors don't. A good sized chunk of the economy is going to be put on pause for a few weeks. It's not a secret why the fed would ease up on interest rates in response to that.

      • by phalse phace ( 454635 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @10:24AM (#59835518)

        A good sized chunk of the economy is going to be put on pause for a few weeks. It's not a secret why the fed would ease up on interest rates in response to that.

        How does cutting rates again get money into peoples hands for them to spend? If people aren't spending, the economy stalls.

        • Obsolete "Fix" (Score:5, Informative)

          by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @11:05AM (#59835710) Journal

          Our economic system is stuck in factory-era thinking. In the old days low interest rates spurred big investors to build more factories or stores. But nobody with brains invests in factories or stores anymore in the USA. The new "cyber-warehouses" don't need as many employees as factories and stores, and are thus a poor substitute.

          What we really need are infrastructure repairs, but Wash. DC blew their wad on tax-cuts for the rich. There's not enough "debt margin" for a big infrastructure bill. The 1% are really in charge and they fucked us for personal greed. About 70% of citizens didn't agree with tax-cuts for the rich, but they got it anyhow. Democracy failed on that one. Go ahead and argue otherwise.

        • by JBMcB ( 73720 )

          How does cutting rates again get money into peoples hands for them to spend?

          It doesn't, but it makes it cheaper for businesses to borrow money to cover the fact that they aren't making as much. It also makes commercial paper cheaper, which is what businesses use to cover expenses like payroll and large commodities purchasing.

          If people aren't spending, the economy stalls.

          Certain things people won't buy. Movie tickets, going out to theme parks, going out to restaurants. People are still going to buy food. People will still buy clothes. Shoot, if your car breaks down during this you are probably going to go out and buy another on

          • I think you're over-estimating how much people have to spend in the short term. Really, housing,utilities, food stay the same. Transportation is significantly reduced. Everything else gets fucked. Restaurants, hotels, retail, airlines, oil & gas (partially because of sauidis but w/e), movie studios, etc, etc. will have close to no income for weeks if not months.Then you have millions of their suppliers and employees who'll also have no income.

        • How does cutting rates again get money into peoples hands for them to spend? If people aren't spending, the economy stalls.

          It creates an incentive for people to get loans, and for banks to give them (Fed also promised to buy $700 billion in bonds to inject liquidity, and cut the required reserve by banks to 0). The previous cuts resulted in a mortgage rate low last week, which resulted in a huge increase in cash-out refinancing (that's refinancing where the borrower not only refinances existing debt, but takes out part of the home equity values as a new loan). They're going to use that extra money they took out.

          • "They're going to use that extra money they took out."

            to pay medical bills! Woohoo! We have the greatest health care system in the world! People only have to borrow against their homes in order to pay the bills, but we're too stupid to vote for something like medicare for all.

            We deserve Trump and all the idiots who work with him to steal us blind.

    • by Nidi62 ( 1525137 )

      No doubt this is being exacerbated by Fed Powell's emergency rate cut yesterday. Investors (and algos) see it as the govt knows something we don't and it's worse than we've been led to believe.

      Plus, the Fed just wasted all their bullets with 2 emergency rate cuts. Can't cut anymore unless you go negative when the recession comes.

      It's probably the second part of your post rather than the first. We're still on the uphill climb of the covid19 pandemic/economic slow/shutdown and the government is quickly using up all the tools they have. Making it worse is an adversarial political climate that reduces the chances that any relief measure could be put through Congress(not to mention whether or not said measure would be vetoed). And of course Saudi Arabia and Russia picked a perfect time to get into an oil price war.

      This will get worse

    • My take on the drop this morning is that everyone sees the cut as a panic move, not based on analysis and projection but giving up hope and caving to pressure from the White House. Trump has been badgering the Fed for years to cut rates without particular justification; right now it may be accompanied by threats.

      On the plus side this might finally blow the top off the VIX.

      • The current policy in many countries to dribble out the measures meant to keep the virus from spreading, instead of applying a robust set of measures in one go when the situation warrants it,ensures that the panic will be refreshed on a daily basis as they keep the bad news coming.
    • This financial crisis was coming sooner or later and the virus was just the pin that pricked it. The bad part is that these crooks will get way with it now blaming the virus for this pain that is caused by the giant debt bubble the blew up exploding in their faces.
  • by DaveV1.0 ( 203135 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @10:05AM (#59835412) Journal
    This is because the Fed overshot the mark and pumped more fear into a market that is moving on fear.
  • by MobyDisk ( 75490 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @10:10AM (#59835434) Homepage

    Rate cuts will do nothing to counteract a supply-side economic problem where entire industries are shut down. A rate cut would help help tip the balance of investors away from banks and bonds and into stocks. But when stocks are losing 10% a day, nobody is going "hmm.... I was going to put my money into the bank, but now I'll get 0.1% less on that return, so sure, I'll throw it into the bonfire that we call the stock market!" The federal reserve knows this, yet they cut rates anyway based on political pressure. Investors know this too, so when the fed cuts rates it signals that the federal reserve and the government don't know what the heck to do. So they sell more. When the Federal Reserve and Trump stop panicking, everyone else will too.

    Similarly, the emergency tax cuts won't do anything either. And it again signals that they aren't don't know what to do and they aren't stopping to think. What is going to be the fallout of people staying home? Businesses will get less patronage, but their fixed costs still keep going. Lenders and debtors will still expect payment. Small businesses may not be able to shut down for a month and just start back up. We are going to need a small business bailout. We are going to need legislation that stops Coronavirus-related foreclosures. Legislation that makes Corona-virus shutdown-related bankruptcy easier and has a fast path to getting out. That would help more than Trump and the legislature using this as an excuse to cut taxes more. He just wants to say "See, I cut taxes twice! Ignore the fact that I outspent my Democratic predecessor in the process!"

    • Small businesses may not be able to shut down for a month and just start back up. We are going to need a small business bailout. We are going to need legislation that stops Coronavirus-related foreclosures. Legislation that makes Corona-virus shutdown-related bankruptcy easier and has a fast path to getting out.

      I'll be interested in what the response is to help the little guy (ie small business and Main St.) vs banksters gets more free money. During the Great Recession Obama bailed out Wall St. and that was it. Hopefully this time we get a more equitable outcome.

      • The bailouts happened in 2008, that was Bush that signed those right at the end of his term (October), and let Obama deal with the fallout.

        • The bailouts happened in 2008, that was Bush that signed those right at the end of his term (October), and let Obama deal with the fallout.

          8 years and not one bankster in jail. He failed hard, didn't even try really. Of course the reason is easy to see as he was busy looking to a bright future of easy money. The most glaring example of this is http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/oba... [msnbc.com]

          I'm not of fan of Bush II in terms of spending or Iraq but to let Obama off the hook as you suggest is wrong.

    • by ranton ( 36917 )

      Rate cuts will do nothing to counteract a supply-side economic problem where entire industries are shut down.

      Rate cuts are not meant to solve the supply and demand issues causing this economic downturn. It is meant to keep lending going during the downturn to reduce the likelihood companies go bankrupt. No one is claiming the rate cut will solve any of the straw man arguments you have proposed in your post.

      Uncertainty over whether Congress will pass bills to help fix the large number of problems you mentioned and others is having a far greater effect on stock prices than lack of confidence in the fed.

      • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

        It is meant to keep lending going during the downturn to reduce the likelihood companies go bankrupt.

        Aha! That actually makes sense given that this selling was resulting in a cash shortage.

        No one is claiming the rate cut will solve any of the straw man arguments you have proposed in your post.

        I think "straw man" has become the de-facto-way to insult anyone's argument. A few years ago it was to quote a random logical fallacy from RationalWiki, with extra smugness points if it was in Latin.

  • by twocows ( 1216842 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @10:22AM (#59835514)
    The market's probably going to keep dropping (possibly less severely) for a few months, especially once the quarterly reports start showing the actual losses from this whole thing. Give it a couple more months past that, though. Keep an eye on the averages. Once you see it flatten or start to recover for about 5-6 weeks in a row, consider moving more of your money (back?) into the market. Everything's going to be very cheap for a while, which is when you typically want to invest. I recommend sticking with safer bets like indexed or managed funds. I'm planning to buy some more QQQ, it's dropped from about $230 to $175 in the past month or so.
  • by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Monday March 16, 2020 @10:29AM (#59835542)

    The damage done will be 90% panicking morons that should be trialed for terrorism and extradited to some pestilence-riddles shithole.

    • by MobyDisk ( 75490 )

      I disagree. I think twocows has it right [slashdot.org]. In 2 months, quarterly reports will start to show the impact of everybody shutting down businesses for 2 months. The market isn't diving because individual investors are panicking. It's because when a company like Disney says they are closing their doors for a month, that means 1/12th of their revenue will be gone, plus they will have to issue refunds etc, but their fixed expenses will not go down. That means a really bad quarter. When nobody goes to the movie

    • Why pestilence-riddled? And not, say, Corona riddled? Much easier to find, coming to a place nearby...
  • Stocks are not where you put savings people. Would you put them in the local casino?

    Although I am considering buying some stocks 'for fun' for the first time ever once the market bottoms out...
    • Be sure and let us know when the market has bottomed out!

      The thing you have to understand about stocks is that they go up and down, but the long term trend of the overall market is upward. Individual companies may go out of business while others prosper. Fortunately, you can avoid the potential drops to zero by avoiding individual stocks and by buying index funds.

      Timing the markets is a fool's game because you can't know the exact moment when an asset is at peak or minimum price. Look into dollar cost ave

  • Are you happy?

    Because none of this was going to change anything.

    Just pass the House bills in the Senate and get back to work.

  • ... saw the administration pull the only two arrows they appear to have in their quiver -- tax cuts and Federal Reserve action -- and collectively said: "Jesus... these people really have no idea how to handle this situation! How many times will they keep doing the same thing when it's not working?" and started getting out. I can't see the direction the market is taking as anything but a vote of no confidence in the Trump administration by Wall Street.

Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes. -- Henry David Thoreau

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