Bill Ackman, hedge fund billionaire and key Trump ally, slams tariffs

[FreeinChrist]

Ackman is probably short the market as he is known for that. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/29/bil...ill-focus-on-quieter-long-term-approach.html?

More Christians should learn how to make money when the market is going down.

Shorting the market is fine to a point, but when the market goes down this much, not so good. My husband does shorts often and even he is groaning about this market.

 

[Richard T]

Shorting the market is fine to a point, but when the market goes down this much, not so good. My husband does shorts often and even he is groaning about this market.

Well the shorts got squeezed today. I was fortunate to mostly have spreads so the losses were limited. When my put options go well into the money I sell and buy lower strike prices too. With Trump I figured there could be a reversal. I just hope no one is leaking the information and making it very easy for them to make money. That there was a rumour earlier this week of a 90 day freeze, makes it even more suspicious. Perhaps it was a test run?

 

[Vambram]

Missing out on the stock market's winning days can hurt you in the long run. When the stock market gets scary, it may be better for investors to close their eyes than to run away.

The market has been especially volatile in response to the tariff news coming out of the White House. Markets plunged after President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on April 2, jumped dramatically after news of a 90-day pause on some of those tariffs, and saw large intraday swings as investors tried to digest what exactly was going on with economic policy.

All of this chaos underlined something that is historically true for the stock market - the sharpest percentage drops and largest percentage gains are often not far apart. For that reason, walking away from the market after a big drop could mean missing out on the market's best days.

Investors got to experience this firsthand when the S&P 500 SPX fell around 6% on April 4, then bounced 9.5% on April 9.
This happens more often than not. Wells Fargo Investment Institute mapped out the 30 best days and the 30 worst days for the S&P 500 over the past 30 years. It found that the largest percentage gains and the largest percentage losses often happened in quick succession. Wells Fargo also showed that some of the best days for the stock market occurred during bear markets or recessions, when stocks were on a downward trend - or recovering from one.

"Disentangling the best and worst days can be quite difficult, history suggests, since they have often occurred in a very tight time frame, sometimes even on consecutive trading days. In our view, these findings argue strongly for most investors to remain invested in equity markets, even during periods of high volatility," Wells Fargo strategists said in a note.

It can be hard to invest through these periods of high volatility, but that's exactly what investors should be doing, said Alex Michalka, the head of investment strategy at Wealthfront.

"If investors are sitting on uninvested cash to avoid market volatility, or because they're looking for the right time to invest, it's important to remember that this behavior carries a risk that the market will go up while you're waiting on the sidelines. For example, if you stopped investing on April 3 because of the market downturn, you would have missed the market's best day since 2008 in the following week," Michalka told MarketWatch.

"Selling on April 3 would have been even worse," he added. "While markets could dip again soon, they could also have another strong day that would be missed while waiting out the bad days. In the absence of a market-behavior crystal ball, it's better to continue investing steadily over time so you don't miss the best market days."

Missing the best market days can really set an investor back in the long run. Adam Turnquist, the chief technical strategist at LPL Financial, ran an experiment in which he looked at historical performance of the S&P 500 from 1990 to 2024. He noted that the average annualized return of the index was 9.8% over this time period. If an investor had put their money in a low-cost index-tracking exchange-traded fund at the start of 1990 and then did nothing, they would have seen their investment grow by about 9.8% every year.

However, if that investor somehow missed the best day for the market during that 35-year time period, their annualized return would be about 6.1%. Miss the two best days and that annualized return goes down to 3%. Missing the five best days would turn that annualized return negative.

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www.morningstar.com

 

[Bradskii]

Missing out on the stock market's winning days can hurt you in the long run. When the stock market gets scary, it may be better for investors to close their eyes than to run away.

The market has been especially volatile in response to the tariff news coming out of the White House. Markets plunged after President Donald Trump announced sweeping new tariffs on April 2, jumped dramatically after news of a 90-day pause on some of those tariffs, and saw large intraday swings as investors tried to digest what exactly was going on with economic policy.

All of this chaos underlined something that is historically true for the stock market - the sharpest percentage drops and largest percentage gains are often not far apart. For that reason, walking away from the market after a big drop could mean missing out on the market's best days.

Investors got to experience this firsthand when the S&P 500 SPX fell around 6% on April 4, then bounced 9.5% on April 9.
This happens more often than not. Wells Fargo Investment Institute mapped out the 30 best days and the 30 worst days for the S&P 500 over the past 30 years. It found that the largest percentage gains and the largest percentage losses often happened in quick succession. Wells Fargo also showed that some of the best days for the stock market occurred during bear markets or recessions, when stocks were on a downward trend - or recovering from one.

"Disentangling the best and worst days can be quite difficult, history suggests, since they have often occurred in a very tight time frame, sometimes even on consecutive trading days. In our view, these findings argue strongly for most investors to remain invested in equity markets, even during periods of high volatility," Wells Fargo strategists said in a note.

It can be hard to invest through these periods of high volatility, but that's exactly what investors should be doing, said Alex Michalka, the head of investment strategy at Wealthfront.

"If investors are sitting on uninvested cash to avoid market volatility, or because they're looking for the right time to invest, it's important to remember that this behavior carries a risk that the market will go up while you're waiting on the sidelines. For example, if you stopped investing on April 3 because of the market downturn, you would have missed the market's best day since 2008 in the following week," Michalka told MarketWatch.

"Selling on April 3 would have been even worse," he added. "While markets could dip again soon, they could also have another strong day that would be missed while waiting out the bad days. In the absence of a market-behavior crystal ball, it's better to continue investing steadily over time so you don't miss the best market days."

Missing the best market days can really set an investor back in the long run. Adam Turnquist, the chief technical strategist at LPL Financial, ran an experiment in which he looked at historical performance of the S&P 500 from 1990 to 2024. He noted that the average annualized return of the index was 9.8% over this time period. If an investor had put their money in a low-cost index-tracking exchange-traded fund at the start of 1990 and then did nothing, they would have seen their investment grow by about 9.8% every year.

However, if that investor somehow missed the best day for the market during that 35-year time period, their annualized return would be about 6.1%. Miss the two best days and that annualized return goes down to 3%. Missing the five best days would turn that annualized return negative.

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www.morningstar.com

Ah, good. Hints and tips on how to make money on the stock market while global trade is being flushed down the toilet by Trump. Good to see you've got your eye on the ball.

 

[Pommer]

Ah, good. Hints and tips on how to make money on the stock market while global trade is being flushed down the toilet by Trump. Good to see you've got your eye on the ball.

All markets where human beings transact business are houses of cards, shaking them up will bring some houses down but the remaining will fare that much better, “financial-Darwinism”, (if you will), which is somehow kosher with MAGA.

 

[Bradskii]

All markets where human beings transact business are houses of cards, shaking them up will bring some houses down but the remaining will fare that much better, “financial-Darwinism”, (if you will), which is somehow kosher with MAGA.

The people that have the time, the ability and the financial acumen to play the market on a daily, and sometimes hourly basis can make money whichever way the numbers are heading. The rest of us schmucks see our nest eggs shrink when Wall Street takes a hit. I'm reasonably well off enough to be able to take a few hits. But so many people rely on their superannuation (or equivalent 401k) for their weekly income.

 

[Jermayn]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/04/07/bill-ackman-tariffs-meltdown-stock-markets/

The Wall Street mogul warned of “economic nuclear winter” as the threat of an all-out trade war triggers a global market meltdown.​

​

Bill Ackman, the hedge fund billionaire who endorsed Donald Trump’s 2024 candidacy, warned in apocalyptic terms over the weekend that the president’s sweeping tariff plan, if implemented as planned on Wednesday, would cause irreparable damage to the U.S. economy.​

​

Ackman’s view is taking hold more broadly. As Wall Street underwent another tumultuous opening Monday, a growing chorus of business leaders, politicians and Trump allies warned that imposing levies on goods from virtually all U.S. trading partners would be an error with enduring consequences.​

​

Elon Musk on Monday posted a video of the late Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman explaining why he believed international economic cooperation, by way of the free market, benefits consumers. Musk said earlier that he hoped the United States and Europe would move to a “zero-tariff situation.”​

​

I see Elon Musk broke with Trump in regards to tariffs, probaby because he is taking a big hit in personal income, as is Tesla taking a hit. But Musk is not alone.

Most everyone sees the tariff plan as a bad idea. I'm no economist though, so I hope our leaders can get this worked out.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Ah, good. Hints and tips on how to make money on the stock market while global trade is being flushed down the toilet by Trump. Good to see you've got your eye on the ball.

The only way you can lose money in the stock market right now is to panic and pull out your money.

 

[Vambram]

Ah, good. Hints and tips on how to make money on the stock market while global trade is being flushed down the toilet by Trump. Good to see you've got your eye on the ball.

lol, that is the opposite conclusions that the author of that article had come to. Global trade ain't being flushed down the toilet. However, it is a great idea to realign Global trade away from Chinese dominance.

 

[Bradskii]

lol, that is the opposite conclusions that the author of that article had come to. Global trade ain't being flushed down the toilet.

How can you not miss the whole point of the article? When Trump does something remarkably stupid, as he did with tariffs, the stock market will reflect that. It plummeted. Trump sees that and tries to walk his idiotic actions back and the market makes some recovery. But from here: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/04/10/investing/us-stock-market-dow-tariffs/index.html

'But even after Trump’s about-face, the reality remains stark: Economists said the economic damage is done, and many say there is still an elevated risk of a US and global recession. Stocks are still well below where they were before Trump unveiled his “Liberation Day” tariffs last week, and those large stock market losses, existing tariffs and high degree of uncertainty about American trade policy are enough to sink the economy, they say.'

And what do you say? Effectively 'Hey, it's not as bad as it could have been'. Well, gee. Let's have a party to celebrate that. And let me know when reality makes an appearance in your neck of the woods.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I think that anyone who has observed the market over time knows that stock traders are some of the most emotional people out there. So much trading is done on "sentiment" it is disturbing. (then there is the emotion wrapped in psuedo-mathematical framework called "technical trading". Oy vey.)

 

[FreeinChrist]

I think that anyone who has observed the market over time knows that stock traders are some of the most emotional people out there. So much trading is done on "sentiment" it is disturbing. (then there is the emotion wrapped in psuedo-mathematical framework called "technical trading". Oy vey.)

Traders work on fear and greed. They do anything to get money, and fear losing it.

 

[Oompa Loompa]

Traders work on fear and greed. They do anything to get money, and fear losing it.

Just for clarification, are you talking about professional day traders, anyone who participates in the stock market, or just the top money makers?

 

[FreeinChrist]

Just for clarification, are you talking about professional day traders, anyone who participates in the stock market, or just the top money makers?

Most of all who are day traders, top money makers and who participate in the stock market in a way that takes daily review.

It is a common phrase about the stock market, enough so that CNN as it's Fear and Greed Index

https://www.cnn.com/markets/fear-and-greed