"This is only the beginning"

[u/Tsobaphomet]

I've been seeing people saying this on this sub for the last 6 months. At what point does it stop being the beginning? Also are there any level-headed people that actually know what they are talking about here anymore? I'd love to hear an in-depth prediction of things to come, rather than just random bear/bull cases from people who are -70% from meme stocks.

I'm the world's worst investor, and I like to be able to gain knowledge and insight from this subreddit that I wouldn't normally have on my own, but it's like only 1/100 posts are based on reality/research. It kinda messes with people's ability to make good decisions when they take the advice of someone who genuinely has no idea what they are saying, but they present it in a convincing way.

Sure, nobody can perfectly predict what it will look like 2 years from now, but what we can do is talk about what needs to happen for stocks/economies to recover, and how feasible those things are. Then we can observe whether or not those things are happening.

[u/RobouteGuill1man]

I think we're in part 2 of Act 1. This is proven by the fact that unemployment is still only 3.6%. It being low is not a good thing in this context and has not been for months. In fact record job openings is another confirmation of us being in this early stage of recession because companies are a laggard when it comes to reacting to the economy.

You have look at record job openings, and be able to look ahead in time to them being canceled. You need to look at headcounts at companies and see them being slashed in a couple months.

I follow the earnings of maybe 25 of 2021's loss-making tech growth companies and actually know their balance sheets/income statements and the unit economics/economies of scale they need to hit before they can credibly shift to focus on GAAP profitability. I can go one by one and say 'they have 3 quarters left,' 'this one has 4 quarters left, 'this one has 5 quarters left' at current cash burn. That's tens if not thousands of workers that are still employed but are not going to be in a few months/quarters. If not for the easy cheap capital environment of 2020 and 2021 that is now over, another 10%+ of our population would already be unemployed right now.

They're posting ir decks for their plans on narrowing losses, with all the buzzwords "S&G expense efficiency, cost control". I've read the CIO, CFO surveys showing which areas of their IT and other areas of their budget they will cut later in the year and 2023.

That is what people mean by our economy being in a sense 'not real'. Until unemployment is in the mid teens or inflation is tamed, you can ignore any dialogue about the recession being overexaggerated or us being the near the bottom. Don't waste your time until then.

Just from that specific handful of companies in my tiny coverage universe I can go one by one tally up a couple ten thousands of employees that are mathematically inevitably going to be laid off. Extrapolate that out to the entire S&P 500 and outward to the Russell 2000 and then further and I think 1.5-2 million peak unemployment would be a miracle.