The Economics Thread

Don't Kill Bill

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Of course the ECB isn't broke. But imo, it doesn't have much room to manoeuvre. Apart from the stability fund, some countries need to spend some money. I am not talking about the likes of France. But countries like Germany have some leeway.
Just watched dateline London on the BBC. One of the contributors was talking about the head of the ECB saying it wasn't their job to keep Italy in the Euro.

Do you know if that is right and isn't that a terrible signal to send at the worst moment?
 

VorZakone

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probably, will have a meeting with the advisor on monday when markets open.
Just curious, what makes an advisor valuable to you?

The reason I'm asking is because if you invest in low-cost index funds and maintain emotional discipline, then what's the need for an advisor?
 

PedroMendez

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Just watched dateline London on the BBC. One of the contributors was talking about the head of the ECB saying it wasn't their job to keep Italy in the Euro.

Do you know if that is right and isn't that a terrible signal to send at the worst moment?
Lagarde said something slightly different and already attempted to walk it back. It was an idiotic statement and she should get some PR coaching. Its a massive gaffe at the worst time.
Context still matters. She is rightfully annoyed by politicians dropping the ball again (= doing way too little) and that seems to have been an attempt to put pressure on politicians to act and not just wait for the ECB to do the heavy lifting on their own. I have no doubt that the ECB will do everything to keep Italy in the Eurozone.

If the ECB wants to get creative they could use something like TLTROs for substantial (and effective) stimulus (there are other ways as well).
 
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Don't Kill Bill

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Lagarde said something slightly different and already attempted to walk it back. It was an idiotic statement and she should get some PR coaching. Its a massive gaffe at the worst time.
Context still matters. She is rightfully annoyed by politicians dropping the ball again (= doing way too little) and that seems to have been an attempt to put pressure on politicians do act and not just wait for the ECB to do the heavy lifting on their own. I have no doubt that the ECB will do everything do keep Italy in the Eurozone.

If the ECB wants to get creative they could use something like TLTROs for substantial (and effective) stimulus (there are other ways as well).
Thanks, I missed it as other news is understandably swamping everything.
 

Adisa

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On a personal level, I am a long term investor. But it is soul destroying looking at my screens at the moment. Thank God I've moved to Corporate Finance so I don't have to deal with much of this stuff.
 

MTF

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On a personal level, I am a long term investor. But it is soul destroying looking at my screens at the moment. Thank God I've moved to Corporate Finance so I don't have to deal with much of this stuff.
It's been tough, mate. The markets get tougher and your capabilities are diminished due to working from home. Great combo for stress.
 

adexkola

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On a personal level, I am a long term investor. But it is soul destroying looking at my screens at the moment. Thank God I've moved to Corporate Finance so I don't have to deal with much of this stuff.
I need to go through several logins to get to my 401k. I'm not looking because I'm not supposed to. Bumped my pre-tax contribution up by 1% though.
 

Neo_Mufc

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I know nothing about the economy/stocks but I've seen a few companies especially the bookies take a battering.

Is now the time to invest in these stocks?
 

Steerpike

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I know nothing about the economy/stocks but I've seen a few companies especially the bookies take a battering.

Is now the time to invest in these stocks?
Given a 13% fall in the Dow Jones today, and the completely unprecedented situation we find ourselves in, I think there is still a lot more pain to come in the markets. The rebound, when it happens, is likely to be triggered by political decisions indicating a start of a return to normality. As the popular pressure presently seems to be on governments to take increasingly drastic measures, I think we are still a long way from that point.

Look out for signs of popular fatigue with the lockdowns in place in the major economies, and the emergence of voices questioning whether the pain is actually worth it, and weigh up the opportunities then.
 

T00lsh3d

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Just watched dateline London on the BBC. One of the contributors was talking about the head of the ECB saying it wasn't their job to keep Italy in the Euro.

Do you know if that is right and isn't that a terrible signal to send at the worst moment?
Probably a terrible thing to say at the time. Presumably they’re, like everyone else tbf, anticipating a bone-crunching recession in Italy. The solidarity of the eurozone will be tested to the limit by this situation
 

Adisa

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I know nothing about the economy/stocks but I've seen a few companies especially the bookies take a battering.

Is now the time to invest in these stocks?
Prices will still fall. So if your looking for stocks on the cheap, you can hold on.
 

Tucholsky

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Probably a terrible thing to say at the time. Presumably they’re, like everyone else tbf, anticipating a bone-crunching recession in Italy. The solidarity of the eurozone will be tested to the limit by this situation
Stupid thing to say from Lagarde and she was critized for it, even in Germany. When it comes to Eurozone credibility, Germany will probably follow the old adage from Churchill about the Americans:
"They will in the end to the right thing, after they explored every other option"
Good thing is the german economy and finances were in pretty good health before the Corona crisis. So there is a lot of financial power available for the german and eurozone economy. I think the following economic crisis could/will be devastating. I think Germany probably has to raise the debt to gdp ratio up to 100%, maybe even more.
Best case scenario ist that world comes through the pandemic and then can kickstart the economy with consumer spending. When the economy is hopefully running again, then introduce higher taxes to lower the debt. Especially in the higher income tax brackets and on capital gains.
Best model is probably the US after WW2.

Anyone here with deep academic knowledge of macroeconomics to ask if that is feasible?
 

Redplane

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With all this talk of stocks and other things it's easy to forget the battering small businesses owners and people living pay to pay or even those that are not are taking and will take. I'm lucky to be in a job I like to think is relatively safe - so many are not. I used to know that stress for years and its stifling. Hoping the best for everyone.
 

Adisa

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Is there a chance that a lot of companies won't get bailed out/given loans to support them?
Definitely, a lot of comoanies will go under over the next few months. I expect the big firms to survive. I am curious to see how the aviation and tourism companies come out of this.
Another sector are the American Shale oil firms. They are highly leveraged. Some of them are already in toruble but I expect the US to bail majority of them out.
 

MTF

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What? No, you really don't want to send businesses that were otherwise healthy go under in massive numbers because of an "act of god". The pain would not even start to end with rich CEOs and investors. It would hit absolutely everyone, especially employees. This isn't 2008, where it was less painful to bail out banks that had themselves caused the bubble and crash, so that presented a moral dilemma. Do you really want to punish businesses for this incident, and as result all of their current employees? To the benefit of who? Those who simply weren't invested at the time and holding cash?
 

PedroMendez

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if there was ever a time to bail out companies, its now. Some CEOs are easy to hate and its hard to stomach bailing out some sectors e.g. US airlines, that invested close to 100% of their available money on share-buybacks over the last years....its still the right thing to do and crazy to let everything crash. It would be a massive waste without any upside.
It just has to go hand in hand with substantial support for workers, who are getting laid off and self-employed people, who are getting in trouble or more generally anyone getting in trouble due to Corona.

unrelated. feel the bern => https://www.wsj.com/articles/govern...ations-of-spoofing-like-practices-11584446400
 

balaks

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We are about to witness a collapse in economies all over Europe and the US. It's going to be a shitshow and all our pensions are about to go poof.
 

Mb194dc

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We are about to witness a collapse in economies all over Europe and the US. It's going to be a shitshow and all our pensions are about to go poof.
Looks like it, basically the options are, end the lock-downs and accept 1-3% of the global population go to an early grave, or continue current policy and get a deflationary crash on par with the great depression and unemployment heading to double digits everywhere. No good answer.

Don't fancy being a politician right now!
 

Adisa

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Yellen and Bernanke encouraging the Fed to buy corporate bonds. That's a feckin slippery slope.
 

Mb194dc

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Yellen and Bernanke encouraging the Fed to buy corporate bonds. That's a feckin slippery slope.
Central Banks totally impotent in this. They're moving deck chairs around.

When you see restaurant traffic reducing 80-90%+ from open-table across all major economies at the same time. No way economies go back to normal for years and probably decades if lock-downs last for months. Will be similar to the great depression.
 

Oldyella

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We are about to witness a collapse in economies all over Europe and the US. It's going to be a shitshow and all our pensions are about to go poof.
I have already received two notifications letters which are automatically prompted by 10% falls in my pension value. Ouch...
 

Adisa

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Unemployment insurance claims in the US point to a catalysmic collapse. Fear this is going to be worse than 2008.
 

Mb194dc

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Bump

Is anyone looking at the trade-off between the level of social distancing being done, and the economic ramifications down the line?
It's easy to model deaths in the short term from the virus.

Very hard to predict exactly what the damage done will be long term, so hard for politicians to know what to do. Long term damage could well be worse than the virus.