[ColdNoMore]

Without a doubt, the fears of what the coronavirus can do to the world economy in the immediate future...is manifesting itself in the markets right now.

Particularly, with all of the unknowns of the virus.

The basic tenets of the "Johari Window"...seems to apply to this virus.

In other words, "Known unknowns result from recognized but poorly understood phenomena. On the other hand, unknown unknowns are phenomena which cannot be expected, because there has been no prior experience or theoretical basis for expecting the phenomena"

This being based on the fact that although "the flu" has many times the cases and causes more deaths than what has occurred with the coronavirus, the actual percentage of fatalities from those getting coronavirus...are 23 times higher than the flu.


Coronavirus Lethality (click here)

BEIJING (AP) — There's lots of confusion about how deadly the new coronavirus from China really is: Even health officials sometimes say "deadly" when they may mean "lethal."

Lethality is how often a disease proves fatal. For coronavirus, that's estimated at 2.3 percent in the current outbreak. That means more than one in fifty people die after being infected with coronavirus.

The flu's lethality is 0.1 percent. It kills about one in every thousand people infected with it.

That means the coronavirus is 23 times more lethal than the flu.

In the United States, about 36,000 people die from the flu each year.

The coronavirus has killed 1,868 patients in mainland China and five others elsewhere. It has also infected around 73,000 people.

As for our (and the world's) economy, it's my opinion that this virus gives cover to those who have refused to recognize how overvalued and precarious...most markets have become for a while now.

Leading indicators have shown for months, that even after the 'sugar rush high' of tax cuts (resulting mostly in stock buy-backs)/lowered interest rates/reduced costs of industries to protect the environment, have worn off and the long-term effects of tariff's come home to roost...that things have significantly slowed down.

Most people our age shouldn't be in high risk/high reward stock positions anyway, but this is IMHO (for those 51% of us that own stocks in some form or another)...a definite wake-up call.

And just like everyone else invested in stocks, I too have watched mine erode lately...and don't like it.

I have been publicly honest about becoming ever more leery of the longest bull market in history and even though there were times I naturally had twinges of experiencing FOMO (fear of missing out) as the market kept rising in starts and fits, I will now resist those feelings...and just be grateful for the last 12 years.

And if the right time, in my own mind, to become really aggressive again doesn't come along again before I kick the bucket, it will be my kids that will have to be the ones ticked off...at anything I left on the table.

Being more "conservative" (click here)

Originally Posted by ColdNoMore

Posted on 5-2-2019

I got chicken a little while back and went a lot more conservative, after the big drop before X-Mas...and then when the DJIA bounced back to just under 26,000.

While it may climb even higher, with this being the longest bull run in history...it's just my opinion we're due for a pretty large correction soon.

And while I may lose out in the meantime, I don't suffer from FOMO (fear of missing out)...because NO ONE can time the market perfectly.

I hung on during the Great Recession when the DJIA dropped to around 8,000 and am darned glad I did...as the DOW increased by over 2 times from then to up to 2016.

I keep thinking about the billionaire who was asked about how he became so wealthy and his response was..."By selling too early."

Even if this virus is miraculously hammered and stopped in its tracks next week, it still won't personally change my mind that we're experiencing a period of..."irrational exuberance."