Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jorge1o1 | Hacker News Reader

Not giving official financial advice here because I would need to understand your individual circumstances, but if you have the view that equities on the whole are going to fall, you can buy bonds, uncorrelated assets (think gold, but calculate the correlation yourself), low beta stocks, delta-neutral option strategies

There’s really a lot you can do

View on HN

The problem is timing markets is extremely tenuous business. You may correctly time the downturn, but you may miss an opportunity when the economic picture improves. Missing just 10 good days over a span of 14 years can have an enormous impact on your returns [1].

[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-crash-will-come-and-thats-ok-...

Missing just 10 bad days can improve your fortunes too. But hey, if you keep putting money on the blackjack table you're bound to make some money eventually. As long as you don't need that money for anything, the stock market is harmless entertainment. But as a small-time investor, I remember that the house always wins.

> remember that the house always wins.

In a casino, it's the impetus of the establishment to make money. In the stock market, it's the impetus of the shareholders to make money. If the house always wins[1], shareholders are the house.

1. This is a tenuous metaphor for the stock market--true in the US over long periods of time, but perpetual growth is not guaranteed.

In the case of equities timing, imo the house is not the shareholders, it's the investment bankers, hedge funds, and other major traders.

Right. My ability to trade as a small investor is after all of the quants and algorithms take their cut trading the noise of the market. Meanwhile I have an account I can look at a few times a day at most. And then I have most of my assets 401(k) that can trade once a day, at most, at a time chosen by the company the next day in funds chosen by the company.

Bonds when interest rates are near zero?

Corporate bonds, not treasurys

VLGSX(Vanguard Long-Term Treasury Index) has actually had really good ytd returns. Dunno how long it will last.

If you expect equities to fall, zero sounds real good.

I'm new to it myself, but I have noticed that BTC has recovered completely.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com