Covid was a black swan event. Unless we see something like the MBS collapse, the underlying economic weakness isn’t due to a such an acute root cause.
Not sure how comparable they are.
Not sure how comparable they are.
And his moves after winning were not unexpected either - he is doing what his opponents predicted he will do.
And even the erratic government reactions to the pandemic was not entirely unpredictable either to be fair.
Firstly - The average market behavior is average.
From experience, most people could not imagine anything of what was predicted, would come true. There is a large … debt of intellectual work that is being underwritten, allowing people to sell narratives which do not correspond to reality.
This is a direct result of a captured, unfair information environment.
As a result, the average behavior of the market is not pricing in these things, even if the plans were made clear.
While people felt that polls indicated a Harris victory and the margin of Trump's win was a surprise and a failure of forecasters, in reality it was always a toss-up in forecasts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for...
I moved all of my money out of the US the week following the election.
That sounds pretty black swan to me, I'm guessing you never felt the need sheet any previous election? Being predictable and being unique are different things.
Trump is the direction taken by U.S. politics for decades now. I could see it post- 9/11, and I was not the most enlightened teenager. Others probably saw it coming years or decades earlier.
While it is kinda the same direction, it also has two Black Swan components:
1) What he's doing actually matches the rhetoric, e.g. actually trying to kick out illegal immigrants even though they're the (underpaid) farm workers holding back food price inflation.
2) It definitely wasn't on my metaphorical bingo card that someone with multiple felony convictions and who had been impeached twice for trying to interfere with the democratic hand over of power, went on to become the popular choice for president.
Sure, the election of a convict was a risky bet, but the appearance of the policies he is pushing was really not.
America has two options; either become the slave of China and enter our century of humiliation, or deny Chinese access to free trade by competing in market economics. Protectionism does not balance America's trade deficits, and US citizens cannot compete against Mexican labor (let alone Chinese prison labor). The economics of it genuinely don't get any simpler than this; American manufacturing will be for naught if we cannot compete in a free market. We already have a successfully financialized economy, throwing out Reaganomics for an even more shit deal is peak neoreactionary nonsense.
Nazi.
Just not surprised by his policies.
He was quite vocal about them during his campaign.
I saw the signs of the beginnings of it decades ago (shortly following the Reagan era) but I had zero clue that it would (or even could) ever get as completely mad-house outta-control as it has. I've watched the situation devolve year after year for decades now, and all the while I kept foolishly believing "It can't keep getting worse forever. People are gonna wake up any second now." Well, here we are. Not entirely sure how we got here, or how we'll ever get back, but... This is how it is, I guess. :shrug:
That's exactly where I am. I keep wondering what rock bottom looks like. And I fear the day that we'll find out.
I did it a little more than a week following the election, but same. I even sold any ETFs with exposure to the US market I previously owned. People thought I was overreacting selling my VGRO, but the YTD returns for my ex-US portfolio are about 150% of what I could have expected with my old holdings and the peace of mind is priceless.
in fact, you should just put it all in gold and keep it under your pillow
This year is the first time that fund outperformed the rest of my portfolio. Not massively, since I do have some holdings that benefited from the AI boom, but noticeably. Just adding 1 to n here. Thanks for reminding me to rebalance, and maybe find another non-AI-related hedge just in case.
In 2020 Biden won 3 swing states by 200k votes. Trump won in 2016 by 80k swing state votes - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45570973
It's the swing states that matter, not the popular vote.
It is possible that 2025 could be the opposite, the software jobs market os already spooky for juniors, and could get much worse with an AI bust - guess what companies will do to show investors they are making up for written-off AI investments? A recession will lead to a drop in demand for online services like streaming, online shopping as people tighten their belts, upward ratcheting of subscription prices will only make the drop worse.
Even people with visas or permanent residency, or who even look like they might be Hispanic are justifiably worried about a random car pulling them over and breaking their window. If you aren't aware or concerned, I call that oblivious or a denial of reality. Or privilege (edit: corrected spelling).
It's different in some ways of course than with covid.
Some may even say "privilege".
After all, it sure as a privilege to not be a criminal or human trafficker.
Rare Earth exports was a known lever that the CCP uses in a trade war, and Trump was very likely to restart his previous one.
However, the Pentagon putting money into MP Materials was quite unexpected, and people are still throwing money at them.
Pandemics and pandemic scares are really friggin' common.
Regardless of official classification, I don't recall any of them having anywhere near the same global impact as COVID.
This is a very pedantic counter argument that leans on the fact that "pandemic" has too broad of a definition. There was nothing else like COVID in my (40 year) lifetime.
Those are, obviously to me as a different reader, the entire point.
Russian invasion is not a black swan event, we had many of them before and there are people whose day job is to plan for them.
Tsunami, earthquake are another examples. We had them before and there are plans for such events.
I beg to differ. Epidemiologists and public health planners always knew such a pandemic would happen eventually. In fact, it wasn't even surprising that it came from a coronavirus as this virus group was the most likely contender with the influenza family.
The only open question was when. We dodged the bullet several times over the past two decades with SRAS, H5N1, MERS and H1N1 (notice, two influenza and two coronaviruses), but one virus slipping through was definitely the most likely outcome.
And I can confidently tell you: it will happen again.
If you can forsee the event, but not predict the time, it's just as bad as an even you cannot forsee.
If all rivers suddenly turned to wine and killed all the crops? Not a black swan event, water gets turned to wine in the bible.
As you can see this attitude makes the phrase "black swan event" very useful.
You guys should really go get some nuance at the retail store.
If you can't tell us when, your predicition is useless.
According to Polymarket, there's a >50% chance that happens: https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-supreme-court-rule-in-...
Trump’s Commerce Secretary Loves Tariffs. His Former Investment Bank Is Taking Bets Against Them: https://www.wired.com/story/cantor-fitzgerald-trump-tariff-r...
And the senate probe into said conflict of interest: https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-wa...
i.e the ~13k shown at 99c and ~12k show at 98c aren’t independent. If the 12k is taken at 98c, only 1k would be left avail at 99c.
You’re right if you wanted to hold the price there it would cost you more, however if there isn’t a straight arb, maybe not instantly, and (some) smart bettors might be wary of such a market going to near 100%