Liquidate entire portfolio until virus is over?

bowlhead99

Alexland said:

Alexland said:

is it really worth damaging the economy into a depression for the next generations?

Oh dear looks like Trump has been catching up with this thread and might reopen US regardless. Markets love it, but can humanity really do this to each other? Sacrifice many for the good of the rest...

Trump did say the lockdown won't go on forever and wanted to ram home the point to prop up markets, tweeting in all caps: "WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF. AT THE END OF THE 15 DAY PERIOD, WE WILL MAKE A DECISION AS TO WHICH WAY WE WANT TO GO!"

Most sane world leaders don't do much tweeting, especially not flying into an all-caps rage to do it, and especially not to reassure people that it might only last two weeks.

I see he doesn't want to give out much support to individuals or prop up small businesses as much as those damn liberal, socialist, democrats would want, because handouts and are bad and a form of communism . But when interviewed was cagey about whether his hospitality properties might benefit from the reliefs and $500bn corporate handouts

darkidoe

Alexland said:

darkidoe said:

I didn't quite understand 'cashflow business value destruction'. Do you mind trying to explain it in layman's terms. 
How do you know forward value of investments might be less for UK investors? Because of the exchange rate?

Although governments are providing some support while businesses are in hibernation they are continuing to burn cash incurring cost with no revenues. Once spent this cash is gone from the value of their business and if they run short they will need others to provide cash into the business (eg issuing bonds or new shares) so would end up owning a less profitable business or a smaller proportion of the business.

For a UK based global investor they are buying mostly US based investments and the weak pound hampers their buying power so they end up paying a bit more (via the exchange rate) for things that are now lower cost (but less valuable).

 Thank you for the explanation. 
 It seems to me most of the factors, eg currency rates, cash value destruction are beyond an average's investors control is it not? Even if you start hedging one way or another, that would be some form of speculation or perhaps spreading the risk further at an extra cost. Difficult to see it make a significant difference for a small individual investor i am presuming.

worldtraveller

CLOSING NUMBERS FROM YESTERDAY:

FTSE 100 @ 5,446 - DOWN 29% FROM PEAK

FTSE 250 @ 14,173 - DOWN 36% FROM PEAK

FTSE ALL SHARE @ 2,970 - DOWN 30% FROM PEAK

DOW JONES @ 20,705 - DOWN 30% FROM PEAK

NASDAQ @ 7,418 - DOWN 25% FROM PEAK

EdGasketTheSecond

darkidoe said:

  Thank you for the explanation. 
 It seems to me most of the factors, eg currency rates, cash value destruction are beyond an average's investors control is it not? Even if you start hedging one way or another, that would be some form of speculation or perhaps spreading the risk further at an extra cost. Difficult to see it make a significant difference for a small individual investor i am presuming.

If you want to take control, and you can, then invest in gold and silver to preserve value. Bonds, Cash, Stocks, housing are all going down the pan.

StevieJ

EdGasketTheSecond said:

darkidoe said:

  Thank you for the explanation. 
 It seems to me most of the factors, eg currency rates, cash value destruction are beyond an average's investors control is it not? Even if you start hedging one way or another, that would be some form of speculation or perhaps spreading the risk further at an extra cost. Difficult to see it make a significant difference for a small individual investor i am presuming.

If you want to take control, and you can, then invest in gold and silver to preserve value. Bonds, Cash, Stocks, housing are all going down the pan.

I am buying Gold and housing :-)

Sebo027

EdGasketTheSecond said:

darkidoe said:

  Thank you for the explanation. 
 It seems to me most of the factors, eg currency rates, cash value destruction are beyond an average's investors control is it not? Even if you start hedging one way or another, that would be some form of speculation or perhaps spreading the risk further at an extra cost. Difficult to see it make a significant difference for a small individual investor i am presuming.

If you want to take control, and you can, then invest in gold and silver to preserve value. Bonds, Cash, Stocks, housing are all going down the pan.

Why do you think that?

EdGasketTheSecond

Trillions (US) and Billions (UK) of currency creation; no-one working, companies idle. Plus in addition the US and UK gov'ts are starting throwing money at people. Everytime the gov'ts do quantitive easing it devalues the dollar or pound in everyone's pocket; and most people do not realise this.

JohnRo

EdGasketTheSecond said:

darkidoe said:

  Thank you for the explanation. 
 It seems to me most of the factors, eg currency rates, cash value destruction are beyond an average's investors control is it not? Even if you start hedging one way or another, that would be some form of speculation or perhaps spreading the risk further at an extra cost. Difficult to see it make a significant difference for a small individual investor i am presuming.

If you want to take control, and you can, then invest in gold and silver to preserve value. Bonds, Cash, Stocks, housing are all going down the pan.

Don't be so ridiculous. There will be a significant short term impact and a lot of worry and inconvenience for everyone. That's all.

At some point the information about and understanding of this virus will reach a point where solutions become available and a recovery will then get under way.

The world is a much smaller place than it used to be and we live in the information age where a collective effort is now possible on a scale unimaginable just a few decades ago.

Confirmed cases are currently around 435,000 cases, that's about half of one hundreth of one percent of the global population.

EdGasketTheSecond

It's not about the virus though, that was just the trigger. The world economy was sick before the virus came along.

Linton

EdGasketTheSecond said:

Trillions (US) and Billions (UK) of currency creation; no-one working, companies idle. Plus in addition the US and UK gov'ts are starting throwing money at people. Everytime the gov'ts do quantitive easing it devalues the dollar or pound in everyone's pocket; and most people do not realise this.

How do you explain the fact that inflation in 1998-2008 was very close to that 2008-2018?  I think you will find that macro-economics is a lot more complex than you suggest.