Comment by mtsr
9 hours ago
I know it’s not popular to bring politics into things on HN, but… From the outside at least, White House policy sounds like at least as much of a black swan event as COVID.
9 hours ago
I know it’s not popular to bring politics into things on HN, but… From the outside at least, White House policy sounds like at least as much of a black swan event as COVID.
Not at all, people voted for this and the outcome was expected by people paying attention.
I moved all of my money out of the US the week following the election.
> I moved all of my money out of the US the week following the election.
I did it a little more than a week following the election, but same. I even sold any ETFs with exposure to the US market I previously owned. People thought I was overreacting selling my VGRO, but the YTD returns for my ex-US portfolio are about 150% of what I could have expected with my old holdings and the peace of mind is priceless.
Black swan is not quite right. It's move of an attempted phase change. It was possibly predictable, but definitely disruptive.
> I moved all of my money out of the US the week following the election.
That sounds pretty black swan to me, I'm guessing you never felt the need sheet any previous election? Being predictable and being unique are different things.
Black swan event: an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight.
Trump is the direction taken by U.S. politics for decades now. I could see it post- 9/11, and I was not the most enlightened teenager. Others probably saw it coming years or decades earlier.
2 replies →
Speaking of impending capital controls, which countries aren’t likely to have them once the markets crash and globalism finally dies?
Black swan event should be unexpected. Trumps victory was within expected possibilities. It was also his second victory.
And his moves after winning were not unexpected either - he is doing what his opponents predicted he will do.
True. It must be added, that theres two wrenches in the machinery that transforms information into action currently.
Firstly - The average market behavior is average.
From experience, most people could not imagine anything of what was predicted, would come true. There is a large … debt of intellectual work that is being underwritten, allowing people to sell narratives which do not correspond to reality.
This is a direct result of a captured, unfair information environment.
As a result, the average behavior of the market is not pricing in these things, even if the plans were made clear.
A coronavirus causing a global pandemic at some point was even more expected though.
And even the erratic government reactions to the pandemic was not entirely unpredictable either to be fair.
Yes, expected at some point. Everyone knows when the election will happen, who is running, etc.
> Trumps victory was within expected possibilities.
While people felt that polls indicated a Harris victory and the margin of Trump's win was a surprise and a failure of forecasters, in reality it was always a toss-up in forecasts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for...