Originally Posted by alarmguy
I have no idea, absolutely none and I am willing to bet, no one does, not even the giants in the industry. Dont forget those big companies almost brought down the worlds financial system in 2008, Some will get lucky and some will lose, because they cant gauge the public reaction.
These are my following impressions only.
Too many unknowns, mass media hysteria and we really do not know if this virus will turn into a massive problem, no one knows but most important, its the publics perception which right now looks off the wall because of the insane amount of coverage the media is giving it.
I learned a long time ago not to fight the market, I still tend to though but this time, I just dont know, how are we going to know if Joe public is going to stop buying stuff because of this virus.
I think we are walking a tight rope, with the coverage its getting, if this virus even gets as prevalent as the Flu, even if its no worse then the flu, the media coverage will have people in panic as of right now it is a nothing and stores across the country are wiped out of certain goods, my god! *L*.
I personally feel the whole darn thing is so overblown that it is insane, to me, right now, Im taking a chance with (symbol) WMT, Im not putting my life assets into it but Im up 20% from the markets open and feel strongly about where this company is going long term but even with that, who knows if plans will go right with any company?
ALl I know, the market has had a huge run and I am not investing an insane amount that I can not afford to lose but enough to really sting me, maybe more mentally! I dont know*L*
I am not in anyway promoting WMT heck for all I know it can fall 20% when the market opens in a couple hours from now.
You're right, no one knows the extent of drop and where "the dip" will be. It's already a massive problem though, real--not imagined. Just not in this country.
For me, it still comes back to China. I'll feel confident when they're really back to work. They aren't. This I can say with 100% certainty--and it's going to be a few months. With their outsized importance in the global supply chain, it's already having a significant impact on the global economy, and because of the nature of production of consumer goods, delays from one supplier now result in problems months down the road. The thing a lot of folks don't understand is that many small suppliers were teetering already due to the trade war; they were in a big cash crunch, lead times were getting longer, sourcing was becoming sketchy... The thing that pushed my hand in December to put everything I have in a money market fund wasn't Covid-19, it was the fact that people were actually working right before Chinese New Year. I'd never seen that before, and it smacked of desperation. The virus was just the pin in the balloon and sped up what seemed to be the inevitable.
I do think there is something to be learned from China's response, and how it relates to the US:
1) there's no containing the virus. China sorta did it, but we simply don't have the resources to do what they did in terms of containment. Only a totalitarian surveillance state can pull that off. They're uniquely qualified...
2) mitigation is pretty effective once it does spread
I think that once folks in the US give up on containment and focus on mitigation, the panic will die down. The virus isn't going away anytime soon, it could be here for a couple of years, at least. Once folks accept that and once folks realize that it's not SARS and 10% of folks aren't dying from it, things will likely return to normal. A new normal, after a lot of businesses have gone belly up and there's been a culling of the herd.