The Bear Market Has Nearly Been Erased, Fewer Than 20 Months After It Began

No, because to do that you have to have deliberately kept money out of investments, waiting for a downturn.

It only works if you can predict the downturn before it happens, and how low things will go.

There is a simple algorithm one can use to determine how much to put in or take out based on what the market is doing month to month. I don't remember the name of it. But if the market sector is going up you increase investment by X%. Going down decrease investment by X%.

I think it works mostly because it avoids going all in at the top and all out at the bottom. Which is the strategy a lot of naive investors end up doing.

> > This is the purpose of capitalism (i.e. acquiring capital).

> Keep your costs down, and buy as much as you can or you will end up on the rat race treadmill until you die.

This is a sad reality of the system. It's not built for people to prosper individually or societally, it's about getting people who have money more money. Sure, as a side effect this gives the lucky few the resources to acquire what they need reliably; but often that means giving up your enjoyment of life to pursue investment.

> The less you eat, drink and buy books; the less you go to the theatre, the dancehall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorise, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save – the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor rust will devour – your capital. The less you are, the less you express yourown life, the more you have, i.e., the greater is your alienated life, the greater is the store of your estranged being. Everything which the political economist takes from you in life and in humanity, he replaces for you in money and in wealth.

- Karl Marx

> The perpetually growing economy on which this strategy and associated worldview are based is not a safe assumption

Why not? What is the counter-factual (i.e., what should we assume instead and what actions should be taken)? How do I organize my life, finances, and retirement investments otherwise?

Neither is assuming it is going to come tumbling down all of a sudden. Bears have lost out over and over barring a handful of lucky and well timed bets.

So far the economy growing during your lifespan has been the correct assumption.

Why not? It doesn't ultimately require increasing resources extraction.

Increasing efficiency or technological capability could have the same outcome

There's a worker's rights movement sweeping large parts of the workforce right now. Businesses are being defensive, trying to lower expectations. It's a bit of a game of chicken; they're not actually "making due", but if they show their weakness, it gives labor an advantage. So they're feigning strength.

It took me six, and I had to accept a contract-to-hire position. I’m feeling pretty fortunate nonetheless, as it’s in an industry I wanted to get into, but it will still be another relief when I (hopefully) get that W-4.

Don’t lose hope. Things can seem hopeless until one day, they aren’t.

I have to wonder how many competent software engineers there are in eastern Europe that aren’t already employed at companies there.

> On the hiring side, it seems to be harder than ever to get qualified candidates. We’ve given up even trying to tech screen and hire based on “attitude”

I’m curious what your interview process is like.

Do you have the option of just not hiring anyone if no candidates come through that the team feels good about?

I had one particular role where our team had the same issue and eventually really ticked off higher management when we kept open vacancies on the team for too long. They effectively said fill the spot soon or they'd move the headcount elsewhere, making for a really dumb choice between filling a seat or committing to be under resourced indefinitely.

We have two open positions on my team and we have yet to fill them as management is “being picky” with candidates. With so many amazing candidates allegedly looking for work, I find it interesting that we haven’t found someone faster.

I think the reason is simpler - the leadership has no vision, they sont know where to apply the engineering talent.

I guess if you doom and gloom about a recession long enough you can slow down the economy.

I cant believe the financial returns my wife’s financial advisor promises. He describes it as the magic of index funds. He should know he was in band before settling down and taking over the family firm.

You are missing something. Where else would it go?

The returns do not matter. What matters is finding something.

Also it depends on share buybacks. If they mostly sell to shares buybacks, every sale actually prop up the price. Also uni endowment and charity funds keep growing with rules to never take money out, so they will be the one buying from pensions.

I highly expect stuff to stay bear until we actively work on it.

Iirc the last solid stats i have seen are from 2019 when 82% of the public market was owned by institutional long term investors. And i doubt it went down.

Liquidity is high because the market makers role has exploded and they invest a lot to make sure it stay high.

GP is referring to the average worker’s retirement plan buying some form of target date fund regularly on payday. This forces the market up as a whole, since the money must go somewhere.

Tax havens are generally pass-through entities of a sort, they're not spending billions of dollars on cocktails in the Caymans. The passage through is just disguised well enough to avoid being taxed.

1. They don't sell that much, and more importantly they sell at a far higher price because the market went up. So they comparatively sell more. Studies we have on older people is that they do not actually liquidate theory holdings. What they do is get more loans to invest in rent, backed by their holdings. Or they reduce their money need, by stopping investing in their holdings.

2. Most Boomers are only starting to retire. And they have enormous needs. Plus university endowments, charities funds, etc also are institutional investors. The problem is do they sell. These days usually they only sell to shares buybacks, which actually reinforce the problem.

3. Move pensions to a government tax funded redistributive system, so the income of today pay the pensions of today. Tax land and housing ownership heavily, except for primary house (with a limit based on family size probably for primary house). Heavily (massively. Like 90% at least) tax inheritance. We have good economics support for these, even in heavily capitalistic and neoliberal economic circles. The problem is political. The Boomers will not vote for it, it would take away from them.

Not yet, it is not only boomers. Also return are still high and there is low supply because shares buybacks.

So even if the retirement impacted it, it will take a long time. If ever.

Probably the boomers are not liquidating their stock market assets until very last minute - after all it’s pretty liquid so personally I would only sell if I really needed the money or had an a idea of where else to put it for a better short term return. Many boomers also have rental income from properties and other forms of savings.

Finally on average people of that generation tend to save more than they need and still have money leftover when dying.

So based on that I would say don’t expect heavy liquidation from the boomers ever.

Omg, is this where the terms come from? Finance people are full of themselves

I'd always heard (I grew up next to a cow pasture): you want to pet the bull, but run from the bear.

The fact that bears are known to hibernate sounds like a better reason behind the term. So I looked it up because your comment just sounds like some ridiculous folklore etymology someone made up (no offense, and apparently my guess is not right either).

https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/the-origins-of...

> The bear came first. Etymologists point to a proverb warning that it is not wise "to sell the bear's skin before one has caught the bear." By the eighteenth century, the term bearskin was being used in the phrase "to sell (or buy) the bearskin" and in the name "bearskin jobber," referring to one selling the "bearskin." Bearskin was quickly shortened to bear, which was applied to stock that was being sold by a speculator and the speculator selling stock.

...

> At about the same time, another animal symbol made its appearance in the marketplace. The term bull originally meant a speculative purchase in the expectation that stock prices would rise; the term was later applied to the person making such purchases. The animal seems to have been chosen as a fitting alter ego to the bear. Thus poet Alexander Pope wrote in 1720:

> > Come fill the South Sea goblet full;

> > The gods shall of our stock take care:

> > Europa pleased accepts the Bull,

> > And Jove with joy puts off the Bear.

> This eighteenth-century animal imagery caught on, and bears and bulls have been in the stock market ever since.

I'm not really satisfied with the bull explanation either, as it sounds a bit tauotological, but whatever.

Only, now you have to check each output sentence, because if formerly you could suspect that an output could be a figment wit shaky sides, now it becomes the rule.

They're different; notably, the crypto market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the rug-pullers, who seem to be patient until they become invisible and unfindable.