October was “like turning a switch”

This article from today’s Times is worth rereading:

In the span of just a few weeks, orders for both business and consumer tech products have collapsed, and technology companies have begun laying off workers. The plunge is so severe that some executives are comparing it with the dot-com bust in 2000, when hundreds of companies disappeared and Silicon Valley lost nearly a fifth of its jobs.

October “was like turning a switch,” said Robert Barbera, chief economist at the Investment Technology Group, a research and trading firm. “Everything pretty much shut down.”

It’s also worth recording that yesterday brought horrible retail sales data. The three month average decline in retail sales annualized was 10.9%, or 7.4% ex autos.