Chronicles of 2025

I created a fun threat on Bogleheads, asking Americans for Asset Allocation and Fonds Jurisdiction advice, given Trump treatens to use military force to seize Greenland, which would cause war with Nato and void all international holdings. Wanted to see if I could pretend this was all about asset allocation and not politics, and have some fun with the americans - but after something like 20 responses, the admin over there just deleted my fun threat. Was just bored lol…

Please refrain from using other people’s time (the moderation policy at Bogleheads is well known and it was expected that your thread wouldn’t last) when bored? Go into artsy productive hobbies instead?

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Breaking news

Friedrich Merz fails to secure enough votes to be chancellor in first round of voting

Seems his own party members voted against him in secret voting. This is shocking & public humiliation

Update
Second vote was won and now Merz is the chancellor


“With the 1998 analog no longer “in charge,” the 2018 analog has taken over in terms of which past correction looks the most like the current one. That 2018 bear-scare produced a sharp 20% drawdown, which was quickly reversed when Fed Chair Powell pivoted from his hawkish stance. From there, the market went straight up. I don’t see the same thing happening this time, but while we don’t have a Fed put for this cycle, we do seem to have found the Trump put. The effects are the same.” – Jurrien Timmer, Fidelity
(Source)

:yawning_face:

一二三四五六七八九十

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Please use total return logarithmic charts. Everything else is misleading.

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Can this be summed up as “with the exception of 1973 and 2000, all other 20% drawdowns ended up positive after 12 months”?

Also, “Trump put”, “Fed put” is quite inventive :slight_smile:

My main take away from any such chart about drawdowns & recovery is that most investors would end up receiving 4-6% per annum inflation adjusted returns in their lifetime.

The distribution of this might be different for everyone but over a 40 year investing horizon, everything will more or less fall in place. So if this happens earlier in investing journey, it might not be such a bad thing

Having said that, the frequency of 20% downturns is increasing in last 10 years. Don’t know what this means for future returns. Looks like we are going towards 1928-1945 period where bear markets were more frequent.

  • Bear markets have been less frequent since World War II. Between 1928 and 1945 there were 12 bear markets, or one about every 1.5 years. Since 1945, there have been 15—one about every 5.1 years.

There is a chance now that there wouldn’t be many „deals“ and we would go back to a chart with new tariffs by country after 90 days pause.

Trump sounded quite frustrated with questions about deals

I believe the problem US is facing is that there are not many things that other countries can offer US to have a trade deficit reduction. It’s not possible to suddenly have so much new demand for US goods & services. It takes years to correct trade imbalance and collaboration. Confrontation is not always best solution.

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Trump also announced yesterday a 100% tariffs on all foreign made movies. Dude is unhinged at this point.

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He may have realized he overpromised. Trade deals usually take years, not 90 days to conclude, despite earlier excitement over ‚phones were ringing off the hook‘ and foreign leaders queueing up to humbly beg for mercy.

Also, everyone noticed how he blinks when Treasuries start to sell off, so little incentive for major concessions.

Perhaps we see some quickly hashed up deals that can be sold as major wins.

In the meantime, big meeting in Geneva this weekend

US and China to start talks over trade war this week

for those that like random lines and MACD crosses :slight_smile:

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For those who prefer colorful bars to random lines …

Also, it’s FOMC day today for those who pay homage.

So the chart is essentially the same as the most recent dot plot?
Shows that forward guidance of central banks can work :wink:

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“We have computers, and I kid you not, today in 2025, that are based on Windows 95 and floppy disks,” said Nick Daniels, President of the National Air Traffic Controllers Association.
                          — Wall Street Breakfast by SeekingAlpha

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Gosh, Window 95 was a meme even in 1995 for being an unstable system.

Japan apparently still uses fax machines because old executives don’t want to learn to use email, and nobody dares to suggest they do :wink:

Agree, an upgrade to Windows 98 Second Edition is long overdue.

Seriously, I can imagine keeping Win 98 SE as a legacy operating system, but Windows 95… :person_shrugging:

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I have personally … ahem … heard of companies that got compromised. Their in-house email service – usually an on premise Smithonian museum worthy Outlook server that was last patched when it was installed in, say, 2012 or so – was “for security reasons” closed down by external … “service providers” … (usually these external service providers nicely enough attach an offer for a key to unlock stuff again – for a bargain price tag of a few bitcoins).

That’s when the fax machines have their moment in time and finally shine again in a perhaps last moment of dubious fame in their life of the recent dusty decades since they were last really used.

I have seen heard of large, publicly traded fund administrators notifying asset managers via fax that their funds X, Y, Z had received net flows (cumulative inflows and outflows in the millions) of x, y, z, and then by portfolio managers subsequent hand written and signed (two signatures) buy and sell orders above a certain amount being sent over fax to confirm orders placed over the phone with brokers to make sure that those funds remained invested without any cash drag.


* Along with personal email accounts, usually hosted on the usual suspect cloud providers.
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Not just Finance. Some, ahem, digitally emerging economies depend on fax machines, too.

The sound of the 1990s still resonates in the German capital. Like techno music, the fax machine remains on trend. According to the latest figures from Germany’s digital industry association, four out of five companies in Europe’s largest economy continue to use fax machines and a third do so frequently or very frequently.

Much as Germany’s reputation for efficiency is regularly undermined by slow internet connections and a reliance on paper and rubber stamps, fax machines are at odds with a world embracing artificial intelligence.

https://www.npr.org/2024/05/31/1248426978/germany-fax-machines-parliament

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