Ukraine War... How much will S&P drop this week?

[Tangler]

Exactly. Whenever anything happens, i immediately look at the 20yr history of vtsax. When you look at it like that, it seems really silly to worry about anything going on. I predict whatever is going on right now is going to be a blip for a young investor.

Time = friend.

As a young critter you have close to 30 - 40 years!

At 48 I still have a few decades.

I will not spend my IRA until my 70s, so that is 22 years.

It will be higher in 22 years. How is that for a prediction!

[Tangler]

It’s almost admirable (if it wasn’t our own demise). Russia and China are playing the long game. Using intelligent strategy and Machiavellian techniques looking three moves ahead, while we are squabbling over nonsense and trivial issues, and left reacting to the courses they have dictated. We look weak and indecisive at this point. Not great, in a world that is naturally harsh and dangerous. I’m hoping for a pendulum swing in our culture soon. We can be decent and fair, but also strong at the same time.

Yep, China & Russia working every day to defeat us.

Our politicians working every day to get re-elected, and rich.

China and Russia think we are fat, rich, stupid, and weak and we act this way by infighting and arguing over ridiculous nonsense.

They are strategic. Long term goals.

We don’t even have short term tactics.

The Afganistan withdrawal debacle…..they saw this.

We argue among ourselves about “social issues” like defund the police, and systemic racism while they steal our technology, study math engineering, and physics and build hypersonic missiles.

We worry about genetically modified crops, while China is genetically modifying people to create super soldiers.

They have propaganda movies where the hero fights “evil” US Navy seals and saves the world.

Our leaders are self serving politicians.

Their leaders are brilliant diabolical criminal masterminds.

Ruthless long term goals for dominance.

China will take over Taiwan, possibly then Japan, etc.

Hope we get our stuff together soon.

[Dont_know_mind]

I think this would be more worrisome if the Chinese took over another country.
Russia is perceived as a kleptocracy, and had barely positive economic growth for the last 20 years as allegedly the oligarchs take a lot.
Russia is a declining power. They have nukes, but so does Pakistan. I guess it is more of a worry if you're a European neighbor.
China on the other hand is much more of a threat.

I think the market will recover from this. I think it would be a more worrisome situation if China took Taiwan. But why would they? Except that they've wanted Taiwan for ages, so I'm told. But it would make no economic sense. But then it doesn't make any economic sense for Russia to take Ukraine either...

So many worries in the world.

[TheDangerZone]

It’s almost admirable (if it wasn’t our own demise). Russia and China are playing the long game. Using intelligent strategy and Machiavellian techniques looking three moves ahead, while we are squabbling over nonsense and trivial issues, and left reacting to the courses they have dictated. We look weak and indecisive at this point. Not great, in a world that is naturally harsh and dangerous. I’m hoping for a pendulum swing in our culture soon. We can be decent and fair, but also strong at the same time.

I think you are falling into the trap of focusing on our own deficiencies and imperfections while only viewing other countries strengths. Russia and China have a ton of internal problems and controversies.

It would be fair to wonder if Putin is acting out because his domestic hand is weakening after decades of stagnant economic growth, wealth inequality and a population that is increasingly unsupportive of his vice grip. What better way to rally the populace than to galvanize it against foreigners? That’s a strategy play borne out of desperation and is a tale as old as time. If he’s backed into a corner, well desperate times call for desperate measures. He is wagering, probably correctly, that the West is not going to go to war over Ukraine.

[ShredtheGnar]

I think this would be more worrisome if the Chinese took over another country.
Russia is perceived as a kleptocracy, and had barely positive economic growth for the last 20 years as allegedly the oligarchs take a lot.
Russia is a declining power. They have nukes, but so does Pakistan. I guess it is more of a worry if you're a European neighbor.
China on the other hand is much more of a threat.

I think the market will recover from this. I think it would be a more worrisome situation if China took Taiwan. But why would they? Except that they've wanted Taiwan for ages, so I'm told. But it would make no economic sense. But then it doesn't make any economic sense for Russia to take Ukraine either...

So many worries in the world.

Actually it makes a lot of sense for China to take over Taiwan. Think semi-conductor domination. If you control semi-conductor manufacturing, you basically control almost everything.

China has already conquered the seas and maritime commerce. They already own almost every seaport in Europe, have set up camp in Africa, and are in control of all of Asian shipping. We are fighting against it areas such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka. China is probably the single biggest economic threat we face. They are looking at world domination and not just the Ukraine.

[Tim]

“Our leaders are self serving politicians.
Their leaders are brilliant diabolical criminal masterminds.
Ruthless long term goals for dominance.”

These sentences can represent the views of anyone. The devil is in the details. The definition of “0ur” and “Their”. Attributes of opponents.

[Dusn]

I think you are falling into the trap of focusing on our own deficiencies and imperfections while only viewing other countries strengths. Russia and China have a ton of internal problems and controversies.

It would be fair to wonder if Putin is acting out because his domestic hand is weakening after decades of stagnant economic growth, wealth inequality and a population that is increasingly unsupportive of his vice grip. What better way to rally the populace than to galvanize it against foreigners? That’s a strategy play borne out of desperation and is a tale as old as time. If he’s backed into a corner, well desperate times call for desperate measures. He is wagering, probably correctly, that the West is not going to go to war over Ukraine.

The problem is that the west cannot go to war with Russia over anything - Russia can keep invading more countries. My understanding is that Russia still has enough nuclear capabilities to destroy the entire world.

Theres a saying in playwriting that “if you introduce a gun in the first act, you have to use it in the third act.”

Unfortunately, nuclear weapons are that gun. We’ve ignored them for awhile but we have no solution to get rid of them. Eventually someone is going to be crazy or desperate enough to use them.

[Kamban]

Without getting too political, I will be more worried about the financial implications of China invading and taking over Taiwan than Russia invading Ukraine.

Taiwan is an electronics powerhouse. Once it goes, we have lost a ton of components that are vital to many industries. Going to war over Taiwan means that we have started WWIII since China won't back down, we will not win using conventional weapons and once you use the first nuke, all bets are off.

China has a much better internal economy than Russia. It can survive with any amount of sanctions.. Their economy will get crimped, but so will ours and all other first, second and thirds world countries. They know that and we know that too.

The person who is most interested in the current stand off is not Putin or Biden but Xi. He is far more intelligent than either of them and knows that once we cave in to Ukraine, we will do the same for Taiwan. Unfortunately we have spent our trillions in Iraq and Afghanistan and lost countless lives in those countries that our public is in no mood to stomach another war in a far off country that does not affect our peace. Add in the inflation and that we have tons of debt, the reality is once Putin attacks, we can only sit back and whimper.

[Max Power]

I picked up some blocks of GOOG today at 6 month low... basically 11 shares now for 10 that I held a couple weeks ago (based on price I sold it at beginning of thread).
I buy it in blocks of 5 shares now since that will be blocks of 100 for calls when it 20-1 splits. I just plan to nibble on it or any of the other stocks I like as I rebuild most or all of my original position with at least 10-20% more shares for same cost basis.

I have not jumped back in on SPY or NVO or anything else I previously held a lot of as yet...
That would not make sense as I am now holding a lot of SDS 2x inverse to grow my balance and a mainly just sitting on a whole lot of buying powder (roughly 55% cash, 35% stock/index, 10% short).
People and markets will tire of the Ukraine news as they did of COVID, but I will definitely ride it while it lasts and surface with many more shares than I had at its start.

[xraygoggles]

I picked up some blocks of GOOG today at 6 month low... basically 11 shares now for 10 that I held a couple weeks ago (based on price I sold it at beginning of thread).
I buy it in blocks of 5 shares now since that will be blocks of 100 for calls when it 20-1 splits. I just plan to nibble on it or any of the other stocks I like as I rebuild most or all of my original position with at least 10-20% more shares for same cost basis.

I have not jumped back in on SPY or NVO or anything else I previously held a lot of as yet...
That would not make sense as I am now holding a lot of SDS 2x inverse to grow my balance and a mainly just sitting on a whole lot of buying powder (roughly 55% cash, 35% stock/index, 10% short).
People and markets will tire of the Ukraine news as they did of COVID, but I will definitely ride it while it lasts and surface with many more shares than I had at its start.

Are you doing all this trading in retirement accounts? Otherwise, you need to factor in not only market timing correctly, but Stcg/Ltcg.

[G]

Shhh...don't spoil it.

[Auric goldfinger]

We were ripe for a painful correction for sometime now. Geopolitical or inflation triggers are very predictable. Stop watching business news, and certainly stop watching the apocalypse minded Fox and Friendlies. Pick up a Harry Potter novel and a glass of red wine. The S&P will be at 5000 in 12 months

[Max Power]

You sold taxable stocks, not just pretax?

Are you doing all this trading in retirement accounts? Otherwise, you need to factor in not only market timing correctly, but Stcg/Ltcg.

I trade in all types of accounts. I very seldom take monies out (have not in many years). It doesn't matter as much as most ppl think.

You guys do realize that you only pay taxes on GAINS, right? (and you can offset gains with accidental losses in that account from time to time)

I think there is an unreasonably high fear of taxation on this board (and among non-professional investors in general)... that can be pretty detrimental to locking in gains, grabbing discount equities, moving money from one thing to a better stock/fund, etc from time to time.

I think I have probably posted it here many times, but you'd rather pay 50% tax on 50% gain than 15% tax on 15% gain (or no tax on a loss). Make money when you can, buy low, sell high... and just let a good CPA clean it up later.

[Brains428]

I trade in all types of accounts. I very seldom take monies out (have not in many years). It doesn't matter as much as most ppl think.

You guys do realize that you only pay taxes on GAINS, right? (and you can offset gains with accidental losses in that account from time to time)

I think there is an unreasonably high fear of taxation on this board (and among non-professional investors in general)... that can be pretty detrimental to locking in gains, grabbing discount equities, moving money from one thing to a better stock/fund, etc from time to time.

I think I have probably posted it here many times, but you'd rather pay 50% tax on 50% gain than 15% tax on 15% gain (or no tax on a loss). Make money when you can, buy low, sell high... and just let a good CPA clean it up later.

I don't disagree. I think the argument is that the market tends to go up, so it's a drag against compounding, and few people are able to achieve alpha for any sustained period. People that outperform on some years underperform on others. And in the FIRE type movement, it's about finding what you love that isn't medicine/work, so thinking about money and trading would potentially take away from that....

But- there are some of us who do view this as a hobby, and are willing to go on a limb to pick an individual stock and sell at a certain gain/loss. So, monitoring it isn't as much of a headache. To each their own.

As for the Russia/Ukraine thing- I honestly didn't see it making it this far. Some of the market volatility has to do with ruble/euro/dollar relationships, as well as an overall bearish sentiment for US equities currently. I really thought we'd have one last run before the first hike and tightening, but I'm not so sure about that anymore.

[uksho]

Unfortunately, it has started .