The Stock Market

Also had a mutual fund for a while - I'd call every night to get the latest updates (and this was only a few years ago). Again, though, itchiness & money troubles "forced" me to cash that in, which turned out to be very smart, since the dotcom fallout was just around the bend.

I also have a 401K plan - I shudder to think how much money I've lost on THAT.

Please note that my family has a history of stock mismanagement - my dad shares of Compaq at $7 (RIGHT BEFORE they got their schwerve on). Sold at $14 - smart move, sez he. Then watches as it rockets up to $86ish; it might've split a few times, too. Either way, he lost tens of thousands of dollars. D'oh.

I've been trading in small oil E&P companies this afternoon (that SO makes me sound less tiny and irrlevant than I am).

But, see, my glass is half-empty & leaking.

I don't pay any close attention to any of this, though. I've never made a "transaction" or whatever. My father was an economist, and sees himself as some sort of expert manager, so I can't sell everything and buy an xBox and whatever other crap I could get if liquidated the investments. And I barely have any money after hitting the boozer and paying rent, so there's no surplus to invest.

Of course most of my friends who were wealthy on paper during the internet stock bubble are now nearly as broke as me, or worse yet are in debt to some great extent having bought a place to live on expectation of future earnings. It's enough to make me want to hide money in my mattress.

(Obviously I only write about this shit every day and wouldn't claim to UNDERSTAND it and would never even think about putting my money where my mouth is but hey...)

I don't actually own shares of Glaxo, that was a joke.

Most of Google's revenue comes from small text ads that Google sells on its own site, as well as the Web pages of other companies. Advertisers bid for the right to have ads appear each time a user searches for certain keywords or those words appear on the Web site of a Google partner. Across the search industry, advertisers agree to pay an average of roughly 40 cents each time a user clicks on an ad. Rates for some much sought-after terms can go much higher: Google caps them at $50. It says it has more than 150,000 advertisers to such services, ranging from Ford Motor Co. to online retailer drugstore.com Inc.

The advertising is lucrative. Google began selling the ads in 2000, adapting a practice commercialized by Overture Services Inc., now part of Yahoo Inc. Google quickly grabbed a commanding position in search ad sales because of the popularity of its search engine. As a result, the company has been profitable since 2001, company executives say.

Advertisers spent $2.5 billion on ads targeting key search words in 2003, nearly triple the $927 million of ads sold the year before, estimates eMarketer Inc., a New York research firm. Analysts and Web moguls are optimistic about the future of these online ads, because they're focused on users interested in a subject, and so are considered much more effective than banner ads, which are strips of ads appearing alongside the content of Web pages not tied to a specific search.

But many of these same analysts have been wrong before. In the late 1990s, they predicted exponential growth in online advertising, centered on those very banner ads. Instead, amid a broad downturn in ad spending, advertisers turned against banners because of declining consumer response. Online advertising plunged to $6 billion in 2002, from $8.2 billion in 2000, according to eMarketer

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/bizfinance/columns/bottomline/n_10178//index.html

(basically, what broheems said)

(Disclaimer: All I know about the Motley Fool is that I tried to get a job there last year.)

I really like Ken Kurson's book. I think it was the first book I read on the subject. Although it's, what, a good 6 years old now. I don't know if it's been revised or anything. But it's a good intro to a lot of financial type stuff (also has lots of info on home-buying and so forth), written in a style definitely geared towards young people without being patronizing.

And of course, the Peter Lynch books are widely regarded as investing classics, though I've never read them.

Brilliant.

jesus christ, the era of 24-hour news and twitchily updated newspaper 'front pages' online has really found its level with this crash. a couple of hours ago the guardian main story was "FTSE rebounds after blah blah blah". i went to the opticians, came back, and now its "FTSE dips in red". what is the fucking point of this minute-by-minute analysis, especially for a non-specialist paper.

Surely there's more point in minute-by-minute analysis for things that are acutely time-sensitive like this? As opposed to, say, 'factory blows up in Stoke, police still don't know anything'.

Not that the Guardian website would exactly be the first point of call for anyone seeking up to date financial information but still...

So tits up or not?

well now it says:

"Markets brace for more turmoil
Last updated 11 minutes ago
Investors and pensions holders should prepare for further stock market volatility, traders warn."

i think the 'volatility'-ness of it is the clue that the headline should be 'volatile market is volatile' until it can be called.

Making a song and dance about everything and anything is what the meeja's all about these days

word on the street is there's a RECESSION on the horizon (this sib-prime thing being the straw breaking the camel's back) and d!ck all we can do about it...

Oh yeah, it's super dangerous and stupid for anyone to be involved in this. Definitely gotta stay aware of that through this thing. As said many times in /wsb, don't bet anything you can't lose, though God knows what percentage of subredditors are all-in or not-in at all.

(p.s. there are many other reddit communities that aren't /wsb, boring ones like /dividends, /investing,/bogleheads, /stockmarket etc that aren't as wild. they can still be suspicious pump-and-dump grounds, though.)

I'm only in for a handful of shares, i didn't risk my retirement - though clearly some people have, which is nuts. I've freaked out just over the small holdings I have. I did cash out a teeny bit of profit on AMC, wot wot :) various weed stocks, not so much, but to me still worth as a lottery ticket. Last week was RKT and UWMC, which of course crashed immediately after I bought. At least they look like decent long-term plays.

And Yerac, I bought GME near the top - right before RH and the other brokers caused the crashdown - and said to myself, fuck it, it's pretty much all gone, so i might as well hold. When it jacked up from $40 -> $100 and seemed to be swinging back, more slowly this time, I bought a few more shares to average down, which was the right move, which is why I'm now in the green.

Haven't yet gone full idiot - I'm afraid if I start trading options that's where the real reckless/profitable all-or-nothing bets happen. The lure of the evil, insane market is very tempting. When the markets paid no price for COVID and raced to all-time highs it was a real awakening, or just massive confirmation bias for me about it all being a casino.

How do you get rich multiplying your investment by 10 buying a stock if you aren't already rich? I'd argue most of these lives would change more multiplying their investment by 0.1, which is the downside. Only people seeing anything special are buying options and then hyping shares. Why make them rich for a possible 10× upside at most?

Also, the smarter play it seems is to just invest in S&P/market indexes forever. Most of my safe "boomer" money is in that stuff which I have no control over

I am about ready to chicken out - setting a stop-loss today at just above my break-even

There is no chickening out. Everyone should manage their own level of risk. There is always another trade, you don't need to marry this one if it's not working out. I sometimes hold thing for 5 minutes and realize...naaaaahhhhh back it out.

Also, the smarter play it seems is to just invest in S&P/market indexes forever. Most of my safe "boomer" money is in that stuff which I have no control over

― Nhex, Wednesday, March 10, 2021 10:40 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

This is what I do and my stomach lining thanks me

I do that naturally as well in the 401k. I have an IRA that was leftover from grad school. It was small so I've used it in 2 riskier single stock plays over the last 5 years. that one is 15x but started so small. even winning feels bad.

that's mostly what I've done for a while, but starting to dip my toes back into active trading

pic.twitter.com/lAVYztmTq1

— Roaring Kitty (@TheRoaringKitty) March 9, 2021

I am still waiting for Congress to wake up and pass a 'financial transaction tax' of one-tenth of a cent on every purchase or sale of a stock or bond and every bank transfer of funds, to be collected and paid by the broker, bank or insurance company who initiates the transaction.

yes. i think everyone is waiting for that.

it's why i'm long $IRS

Wondering if the stimulus checks will actually move the needle on retail investing, if temporarily. I'm guessing not even that, though, despite hopes of the GME bag holders.

lol https://ark-invest.com/articles/analyst-research/tesla-price-target-2/

to the mars!

the price of tesla just seems completely untethered from "fundamentals" in a way that suggests that a ludicrous price target like that is potentially not wrong to me. i feel like if i had a spare 6 figures lying around i would absolutely be buying a bunch of tesla shares, although i would probably get out once it reached less than half of that targeted price

the primary input to the model was cocaine

ARK's largest holding is TSLA and they can't buy anymore to prop up the price because they are at or near 10%. Gotta pump!

Their bear case is $1500/share.... so they're saying at worst, it'll be double it's all-time high in 6 years. Hmm. Possible, I suppose.

If I were going to make a buy case for TSLA it would simply be that Elon Musk is a fantastically talented hype man.

Nothing in ARK's model makes a shred of sense though. "Bear case" in which 2025 sees them selling 10x the vehicles they sold in 2020, absurd assumptions about their as yet nonexistent ridehail/autonomous taxi businesses, etc.

Interesting that ARK funds, TSLA, and bitcoin are all crashing yesterday/today

Tech's had a really bad week. Telling myself it'll bounce back next week

This is pretty freaky:
https://www.ft.com/content/2542af81-9e93-4d05-a0b9-26c0f6aab6f3

Apparently you can just amass positions equivalent to 5 or 10% of a company's stock via swaps and never report it? And major investment banks are fine with giving you tons of leverage to do it, until it blows up and a single hedge fund's implosion causes 30% drops in multiple large stocks?

Stock market is totally having a normal one right now

What the hell? https://t.co/92RWejK16A pic.twitter.com/hgzLMhrpN4

— Joe Weisenthal (@TheStalwart) April 15, 2021

there is something very weird going on with that one that is probably not at all indicative of the wider market. I don't know if it is a form of money laundering or what, but I can't imagine it's a bunch of retail investors running up the price. It trades less than 400 shares per day.

lol this is one of my favorite stock descriptions ever

Hometown International, Inc., through its subsidiary, Your Hometown Deli Limited Liability Company, operates a delicatessen store under the Your Hometown Deli brand name in the United States. Its Your Hometown Deli store provides sandwiches; soups; salads, including made-to-order green salads, prepared pasta, potato, chicken, and various wet salads; deli meats/cheeses; hot/cold drinks; fresh breads/rolls; breakfast products, such as pastries, bagels, and toast; yogurt; and small retail items for cooking, baking, and home use, as well as coffee, tea, and other hot and cold beverages. The company was incorporated in 2014 and is based in Woodstown, New Jersey.

Please do not think for one minute this reflects badly on the security of those stock mutual funds in your 401K. Pretty please. With sugar on top.

sounds like a mafia front posing as a public company

xp, Oh certainly not -- but there are dozens of SPACs that are like 60% as ridiculous as that. I think the point is more that there isn't a lot of evidence of oversight.

What do you guys think of something like VIAC, which had it price destroyed to one hedge fund dumping it?
The business hasn't really changed much, meaning it's seriously undervalued right now or it's still pumped too high due to current market exuberance. Still higher than it was in Jan/Feb '20. The company has remained profitable regardless.

FWIW, I just listened to this: https://open.spotify.com/show/1te7oSFyRVekxMBJUSethH?si=sbeWrWYnR4iZo_apx0LkUw which was v interesting on greensill, credit suisse, and archegos among other things, and the guy made a pretty good case for VIAC being a slowly dying business.

There are usually a lot of profits to be squeezed from a slowly dying business. Look at what vulture capitalists are doing to the newspaper industry. The question is whether those remaining profits can translate into a higher share price. Probably not.

link between price and profits seems a lot more tenuous these days anyway, so it's about a good a dice roll as a lot of other things.

How to get rich in 3 easy steps:
1) Steal hotel soap
2) Invest savings in S&P
3) Become millionaire pic.twitter.com/GSQBsopb6z

— TikTok Investors (@TikTokInvestors) May 17, 2021

very good account

oh, fintok.

it did turn out that GME was a safehaven stock.

I got out on AMC months ago... if I illogically held, I would've quadrupled+ my money! Too late to get back in now.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/6/2/22465198/amc-meme-stock-popcorn-wsb

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22555337/E24_NrSWYAAhODE.jpg

The thing that interests me about the meme stocks (so far) is that they are companies in a consumer-friendly line of business. Yes there's speculative mania or whatever but why shouldn't individual investors with money to splash around go long on video game retailers, movie theaters, and a fairly stable big box survivor? Why not get people to bet in favor of like, normal companies that sell normal products that people like to normal people? Nobody's gonna meme Exxon.

BB is kind of a weird one (maybe it's the ticker), but the rest were way shorted. BBBY ran last time to almost $60 that one friday in Jan. It's all the same tickers again.

what a time 2 b alive pic.twitter.com/UxIa5lIv7Q

— Liz Franczak (@liz_franczak) June 2, 2021

Just the voice of uneducated, frustrated disgust: if the stock market managed a baseball team, they'd pinch-hit for Mike Trout in the 4th inning because he grounded out in the 2nd.

("Uneducated" as in illiterate about monetary matters.)

Oof, those meme stocks a few posts up, then vs. now. ^^

Everything I hate about the stock market summed up in a single headline on CNN today: "Stocks tumble after better-than-expected jobs report."

I understand the dynamic: more jobs = inflation = stocks tumble. It's still intuitively bizarre.

https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/comments/zfj761/recently_discovered_the_majority_of_my_parents/