" Retail sales plunge a record 8.7% in March as coronavirus crisis freezes U.S. economy.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/retail-sales-in-the-us-plummet-a-record-87-in-march-at-start-of-coronavirus-crisis-2020-04-15?mod=home-page

Pinball. Location/tournament pinball is dead. Actually, any hobby that has a face to face component is dead.

Been learning a lot from you and others in this thread. Thanks.
Question. Are you jumping in now at about 7 bucks a share or do you see this going lower?
Thanks

my kids do - they go all the time

Hypocrites.

Create? We’re long past create.

I think we drift lower over the next few days. Earnings are not going to be good but I don't think the extent of the earnings hit was priced in. Fundamentally, nothing has changed with the pandemic and I think that people are finally coming around to the fact that this is going to last much longer than what originally thought. I have some trades teed up for S&P 24000 - 2500 range. As I have said throughout this thread, cash is king, and this market is not running away from anybody right now.

My question is: The govt. is just now getting around to actually sending out the money from the news pump from 3 weeks ago.

If the market proceeds to tank and the govt. is still struggling to get the "original" money out on the streets, what does it do for an encore in an effort to prop up the markets?

Pledge to send out even more money?

I am keeping my pinball machines as a hedge against the inflation that I see coming. (I really do not see inflation coming, but I do wonder how inflation will be avoided ).

Oh yes, I just bought a couple of non-essential from Amazon. I am not a Prime member and always work my orders for free shipping. My delivery date is 4 weeks away.

So much for support at 23,700.

We do have Prime and a few things that we ordered within the last week or two had the “this might get put behind essentials” warning. The original date was sometimes 2/3/4 weeks out but I had one thing update the arrival date twice after I ordered. It would have been 3 weeks and ended up being about 4 days.

Just to compare notes. You might get a revised date.

Apple just blinked.

"Apple unveils new budget iPhone"

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/tech/iphone-se/index.html

"After years of releasing smartphones with four-figure price tags, Apple (AAPL) is reintroducing a lower-cost, stripped down iPhone model in an apparent effort to broaden its customer base."

****I do take exception to the author's opening of "After years of releasing smartphones with 4-figure price tags". The $1,000.00 cell phone is a relatively new price point. It has not been years.

Nothing to see here. This has been rumored for the last 6 months.

I am not as fleet footed as you. My timing on my TZA buys could be improved. I am holding my TZA but not adding. Yesterday had me biting my nails.

Oil:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/15/business/oil-prices-us-production/index.html

Gas is $1.39 here today. I have driven approx. 175 miles in a month. Cheap gas and I can't use it. 70 miles of that 175 was to go to girlfriend's and pick up my dog. Now it is the grocery store and the dog park. That's it.

That is a good risk reward ratio. Actually, quite good. And all you need this index? to do is close above $43.45.

Is this an inverse index. Up when the market is down?

Gas is $2.59 here

How do you generate these analyses?

It reopens the economy brother Cotton!

And yes, you haven’t seen round 4 yet

As for inflation, if and when that happens the Fed will be there to suck up excess liquidity, they will at some point anyhow.

At that point, is when you’ll see a re pricing of assets and a market decline to really get excited about. Will make the 4th quarter of 2018 look like peanuts

The fed and fiscal stimulus have put a floor under this market in the short term, primarily the Fed, and any day to day action should just be bouncing around a tighter range

Unless, the shutdowns linger which is doubtful, the protesting has only just begun, people have had it

Unemployment claims tomorrow? 5 million more? Like the virus, it’s peaking and then declining. Not enough people left to destroy in this carnage!

Patiently awaiting another dip

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/9BE63C34-7E6B-11EA-B298-E6606EABF547

Here are your charts and resistance levels for the traders

2725 and 2650 next steps for S&P on the downside

2650 represents the 38% Fibonacci retracement level. Below that, the lines represent the additional Fibonacci retracement points

Anybody see the wild ride with LTRPB today? Was up well over 2000% from opening today at one point.

That’s insane! How does something like this even happen?

Reverse split?

Something to ponder for down the road.

As economies build up massive debt on top of debt due to the virus the only way out will be to inflate their way out.

Paying back all that debt in dollars or currency that is worth a lot less than when originally borrowed. Bad for lenders

Like musical chairs, Global currency devaluations are coming down the road like a pandemic

So when is the time to buy gold?

Aren't you glad you are not trying to sell annuities for a living?

That's the right question to ask if you believe that premise. With massive gold reserves should the US go back to the "gold standard"? Used to be considered a fantasy, now it's part of the discussion in some circles.

It would prevent the government from printing money at will and run up larger deficits to increase the national debt and inflation would become rare again, not that we have it now but.... right now we have fiat money created out of thin air.

But how would we do without all this Fed and fiscal policy manipulation? LOL

"Full faith and credit"

I don't get the connection?

I would say the purchasing power of our future currency is going to be worth a whole lot less than it is today, a race to the bottom.

What will "cash" or "cash equivalents" be worth down the road?

Are we in the "eye of the hurricane"? The initial blast was brutal. The back end of the hurricane could deliver a longer and more sustained blow. Or, it might just peter out with clearer skies ahead?

You are going to have an unfunded pension crisis get worse, along with local and state governments trying to figure out how they are going to make up lost revenue. Govt Pension funds are way down and $5.2 trillion of pension debt could swamp states on the heals of this shutdown. Alaska, California, Connecticut, Illinois etc. etc. etc.

Thinking out loud here.

You must be drowning in Kool Aid by now. When do you stop parroting the company line on genuine economic and market realities? Oh, never, right.

the “virus only”? Haha. Snake oil salesmen are gonna get raked. Good luck Ice.

Smells like a fart to me.

Do you ever actually provide stock market advice in the forum?

Putting money on the VIX is only for experienced investors(like kpg). You can get your faced ripped off quickly if you don't know what you are doing. I would highly suggest you watch the intraday price action for a while before you dip your toe in the water.

Selling annuities is a function of interest rates. We are at the bottom of the interest rate cycle. 20 years ago when rates got down to 6%, I did not think they would go lower. Boy, was I wrong. And here we are at essentially 1%. How does one sell an annuity with 1% rates?

Man i'm just trying to think it through like you and everyone else KPG.

The recent Fed action along with the massive fiscal flood of $$ and the reopening chatter gives me some comfort in the short term. But like i said, i fear we might just be in the eye of the storm and i'm not sure how long that lasts. I'm trying to focus on excellent businesses with great balance sheets and little to no debt for the longer term holds.

For me personally, I'm sitting in 50% cash right now, with big positions in TTD, SHOP, PINS and Apple and a basket of other smaller long term positions. I'm also trading SHOP and TTD, smaller float and large short interest, so the squeeze can produce some wild swings like it did the last several days, and these are stocks i want to own long term anyhow if i get stuck.

I've used TZA at times to hedge those small caps. I closed out 75 Apple 2021 LEAP call contracts purchased last summer before i wanted to for big gains, but as a result have to pay ordinary tax rates of 37% but just had to take those chips off the table. I'll be looking do the same thing again for 2022 calls if we get close to a retest of the lows.

The cost of hedging longer term is expensive. For example, buying S&P 500 puts to hedge requires good timing. It costs about 3% a quarter roughly to hedge against a 20% downside move and up until now that was just a drag on performance, and as you noted, especially difficult when the implied volatility is elevated like it is now. I don't find that as a good option for my clients across the board but maybe in certain cases where the need for access to the money is more short term oriented.

I've used the VIX as a hedge for a few big accounts when it was trading in the teens. That worked out well.
Covered calls on big positions like Apple. I haven't used much GLD at all and avoided commodities for the last 6 or 7 years thankfully.

For about 10% of the overall Aum i use a third party unconstrained tactical manager (algorithm) to protect against bigger drawdowns, costs 25 basis points and i can raise that % up if i feel we are heading into a prolonged downturn. They just don't perform as well on the way up.

Right now I'm around 80% equities and 20% fixed, mostly VGSH, to avoid interest rate and credit risk. High yields and preferred's were down 15-20% recently, and like Buffett i don't like bonds and people shouldn't pay anyone to manage them, especially at these yields, i'll look for alternatives or stay on the short end of the curve for dry powder.

Currently, I'm getting prepared for move to a higher % to cash via "Irebal" if starts to look like we are just passing through the eye of the storm. TD Ameritrade is my custodian. I can move and rebalance approx. 1700 accounts over 45 different models i use, to all cash short term, add a hedged position in the models or just a higher % of cash, in about 15 minutes, and at zero cost now. There are certain positions in most accounts that are "locked" and don't get rebalanced.

Apple represents approx. 20% of the Aum, Visa is a distant second i believe, which have given us an excellent cushion over the last few years. Just filed my 13F.

And we still have to consider the tax consequences as well in taxable accounts but in these times you "can't let the tax tail wag the dog".

I don't know Kpg, I'm just trying to get prepared as best as possible for whatever comes next short term, with an underpinning of a long term strategy.

I don’t like bearish iceman44 . I need that positive brovado to be the counterbalance to my negative Nancy tendencies.

Yeah, i think you'd have to be crazy to lock in on and buy a 3-5 yr term which pays a fixed rate of 2.5-3%?

A 1 yr CD today at 1.5%, a 5 yr CD at 1.65%? How does that sound to you? LOL

I suppose some people want zero risk but i'd rather sit in money market or VGSH. The current yield is 2.10% and the expense ratio is .05 versus the ishares SHY at .15

The 10 yr treasury actually closed at 64 basis points today. Why would you invest in that unless you thought rates were going to keep going lower? I wouldn't.

I'm not really "bearish",still very optimistic, just taking a pragmatic and level headed approach to the unknowns that are facing us Oak! Gotta look at both sides of the argument.

I worry that reopening the economy ASAP is just becoming a political football as opposed to what needs to be an economic necessity, immediately.

This SBA small business bailout is a shit show. I've talked to several clients and others that have gotten no response back from their banks, while watching the money run out today, and hearing of stories of high profile businesses like Ruth Chris and others get millions.

It might be another shafting of the true small businesses out there and the current 350 billion appears to be not nearly enough!

I worried about all that printing of $ during the last recession. I was sure it would result in massive inflation and a depression. Didn't happen. It's funny that the same Party that ripped Obama for that solution is now applying the same solution to this financial mess and giving no credit to where they learned it.

Anyway, I'm still worried about this policy due to the size and scope but not as much as I was 12 years ago.

Morning news: Another 5.2 million unemployed this week and housiing starts are down 22%... Big surprise futures are up 170 points.. The plunge protection team is hard at work this morning I see, they are only delaying the inevitable!
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