This is probably a bad place to ask this question - traders tend not to be the most 'connected' people to the rest of the world - you focus on the markets day in and out, you know? See threads in psychology dealing with lonliness, girlfriend/wife issues, etc.. In my affluent area, through my church, I know many people are facing significant financial crises. Buddy of mine is an civil engineer, now a stay at home dad. 18months out of work, no prospects in his field. Another buddy is a builder. Little work beyond the occasional home improvement gig. Wife of another guy is facing finanical ruin due to the housing crash and a mortgage they can't afford. My close buddy in town was subjected to a 30% pay cut, and then forced to take less desirable work assignments that pay less due to seniority rules. I estimate he is earning 30% less than last year with some additional teaching work he does. Even among the working survivors, there is a pervasive fear of job loss. A theme that seems to be cropping up is if you lose your job, the next one you find will be at 50% of your former salary. Nobody I know is buying new cars or living it up except for the 20 somethings who have no kids and relatively no debt. On the other hand, people with wealth are swooping in and buying upper end real estate with cash or mostly cash ($500-1.50mio price range). Is it a bottom or just the next wave of speculators who are going to get hosed? (I favor the latter). Can't tell, but in my area, further housing price declines are expected - there is a large wave of foreclosures building into January. I think these people are early, but am not as sure of that prediction as I have been in the past of others. Yes, I do see people out and spending again. But the things they are buying are smaller items. Is it stabilization? I don't know. Maybe temporary, maybe something else. Time will tell. I would suspect every person on this board with an ounce of experience is going to be looking very closely at data in Spring of '10. I know I will.
I live in long island ny. Don't know anyone except for my father in law who just got laid off last week. I have alot of former mbs desk friends who used to make $400-$500,000 in the good old day. I saw a bunch of them at a wedding a few months ago and all they were talking about was how the banks specifically Nomura and CS were building up their bond desks again. Alot of these guys were talking like it is all about to start up again. I have a hard time believing this but only time will tell.
This is probably a bad place to ask this question - traders tend not to be the most 'connected' people to the rest of the world - you focus on the markets day in and out, you know? See threads in psychology dealing with lonliness, girlfriend/wife issues, etc.. ------------------------------ Excellent point. I for one don't interact with enough people to trust my own opinion, although I consider myself astute enough to recognize the symptoms of a local poor economy. On the data points, I like state/county sales tax reports also, state and fed tax liens on small business. Imo, if small business are getting crunched they'll slide on those payments.
Figure it out, usually you're friends with like minded people, shared interests, this tendency is confirmation bias. The people with opposite view points (which is what drives critical thought) generally you can't stand and would never be friends with them. My sister suggested I join face book like the rest of the family. I asked my one friend if he was on face book and he said "If I wanted any friends I wouldn't have pissed off the one I had". P.s. I didn't join face book, ho hum guess the family will survive without me.
" How many unemployed do you know?" Four off the top of my head, along with another half dozen or so that have been furloughed, they hope temporarily. There are several others I've heard about in the neighborhood, but I don't actually know them personally. We also have more for sale signs in my subdivision now then there were at the so called bottom.
I would concur. I have doubt about that "traders just moving into white collar jobs with no problems" in NYC area. NYC has been hammered, there are loads of financial service workers who are pounding the beat. Employers are not snapping up blown out traders. Even college grads in good fields (like MS in Computer Science) cannot get jobs.
Most of the people I knew that got unemployed are in Mexico tending their veggie gardens and goats... one of my neighbors was out of work and he actually found something recently, people never fail to amaze me with regard to what they can do when they have to... As a side note, a Mexican guy I worked with told me once that there are no homeless people in Mexico. He said that even the looniest have a place to go at night, it might be their Grandma's garage or something like that...
Three guys in NYC I know got laid last month. One is architect. Other two are software developers. My other friends own product distribution companies in NJ are not doing well also. They have been bleeding since last year.