A Record $6T in Cash on the Sidelines | Hacker News Reader

A Record $6T in Cash on the Sidelines

visualcapitalist.com

36 pointsgmays9 comments

I'm not sure there is nothing to this theory, but it's definitely not as straightforward as it's presented here. Here's a decent article from last week that talks about why "money on the sidelines" is a myth: https://realinvestmentadvice.com/money-market-cash-on-the-si...

I think we can all agree the stock market is already on a tear / in a bull market phase / whatever you want to call it. Whether or not it "should be" is a different question? How can the "tech sector" be laying lots of people off (https://layoffs.fyi/) but also crushing earnings and growing a lot?

To think that... as the Federal Reserve lowers rates in the near-term future (12-18 months), that this cash will go from "risk off" (in money market accounts) to "seeking return of greater than 5%" (risk on)... and make its way into "the market" (index funds, etc.)... would mean that the market stands to go even higher and the bull run based on AI hype/etc. is only getting started? Valuation be damned.

> How can the "tech sector" be laying lots of people off (https://layoffs.fyi/) but also crushing earnings and growing a lot?

Here's one way to think about it: The rise in interest rates has set off a retooling of the tech sector, a retooling which requires workers moving between jobs. The workers being laid off are going from working in areas of the economy that were profitable (or simply flush in funding) in the environment of 2021, but no longer profitable in 2023/2024, to areas of the economy that are profitable today.

> The rise in interest rates has set off a retooling of the tech sector, a retooling which requires workers moving between jobs. The workers being laid off are going from working in areas of the economy that were profitable (or simply flush in funding) in the environment of 2021, but no longer profitable in 2023/2024, to areas of the economy that are profitable today.

Is there any data to back up that the number of layoffs is not being matched with number of job openings and the tech sector as a whole is "net shrinking"?

aka, for example, 300k layoffs, 150k positions backfilled, 150k positions net lost... potentially a) "replaced by AI" or b) because interest rates are 5%, the projects those 150k people would've been working on are no longer fundable in a profitable manner and were just deleted from existence

My gut tells me there is still plenty of down-market demand for software engineers. Not sure how you would be able to show this though, maybe through average salaries going down? So "shrinking" doesn't look like jobs being deleted (this seems a bit too zero sum), just engineers taking less lucrative gigs.

If a person is concerned that there is a looming downturn, they are likely to reduce their spending in advance. This action is likely to have the effect of increasing their net-income before the downturn comes.

> they are likely to reduce their spending in advance.

Can we extrapolate that we are not seeing a reduction in spending because tech companies are posting "good earnings"?

It takes people spending money in order for earnings to be good, right?

The post is an advertisement:

> The following content is sponsored by New York Life Investments

The "content" is just an image with an affiliate link.

There are no sidelines, it's a closed system.

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