Dow is currently in a freefall

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

[_Maksutov]

Buzz never was much of a poker player.

[_Kevin Graham]

Why pension funds may be driving the stock market’s post-Christmas bounce

Corporate pension funds needed to shift $64 billion of funds into stocks as of Dec. 20: Wells Fargo

Beleaguered investors may want to thank pension funds for the stock market’s biggest daily jump in nine years on Wednesday, which helped set the stage for Wall Street’s first weekly gain in an otherwise gloomy December.

Strategists at Wells Fargo said that the market’s last-gasp rally this week may have been driven by buying from pension funds who needed to rebalance their portfolios towards stocks and out of bonds in to keep asset allocations in line.

As of Dec. 20, they estimated defined-benefit pension plans for U.S. corporations needed to shift around $64 billion of funds into stocks before the end of the year.

“There’s no question this is a historically large amount. We’ve been crunching numbers on pension quarter-end flows for a good part of seven years. This is frankly the largest rebalancing amount we’ve seen,” Boris Rjavinski, senior strategist at Wells Fargo Securities, told MarketWatch (see table below).

Defined-benefit pension funds were in the opposite spot back in January when they were sitting on fat gains from the stock market, which repeatedly notched fresh highs, as bonds struggled to keep up. Yet the last two months have seen a reversal of their positions, with pension plans now needing to top up their investments in equities after bonds outperformed in a down year for both asset classes.

The market’s post-Christmas climb appeared to come from nowhere in holiday-thinned trading, leading some to point the finger at pension funds who need to tweak their portfolios before the end of every month and every quarter. Pension funds need periodic readjustment as outperformance or underperformance in one corner of the pension fund’s assets can put its allocation out-of-kilter with its target weighting.

Rjavinski said pension fund managers do have some discretion to choose when they want to rejigger their funds, but they would rarely skip the quarter-end milestone and rebalance at a later time.

“That would mean taking an active bet on the market,” he said.

[_Kevin Graham]

2018 was the worst year for the stock market since the great recession 10 years ago.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/stock-ma ... 20891.html

The Dow posted its ninth consecutive week of advances, its longest weekly winning streak in nearly 24 years, as investors continued to digest commentary surrounding progress toward a U.S.-China trade deal.

The Dow (^DJI) closed at 26,031.81 points.

Not gonna lie, this is good news for, uh, certain people who have a S&P Index fund. If this is any indicator it looks like a deal with China is going to happen, and, geopolitically, couldn't come at a better time for this administration.

- Doc

[_Kevin Graham]

Just another 600 points and we'll be where we were 13 months ago!

‘Father of Reaganomics’ says ‘get out of the market’ — bond and stock market — ‘and put your money in cash’

These guys usually show up with a Democrat as President so I was surprised to see this now.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Maybe a more meta view would be helpful to the average person:



eta:




- Doc

[_Chap]

Maybe a more meta view would be helpful to the average person:

A very long term view is certainly important to those who want to talk about long term trends.

But it is Trump who is basing his claims to be a wonderful President on what has happened since 2016. It's therefore reasonable and appropriate to comment on his claims in the short term too.

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

Well, I probably wouldn't be using Trump's tenure as some sort of metric then if I wanted to demonstrate his failure as a President by the stock market's performance:

https://www.macrotrends.net/2613/stock- ... ction-date

- Doc

[_Kevin Graham]

DOW is dropping big again... down over 400 points today.

https://www.marketwatch.com/investing/index/djia