It’s a tough thing. I had a friend that showed me his Robinhood account with almost $300k in it during the GameStop squeeze. I don’t think I ever would have had the stomach for it, but he listened to one guy on YouTube and made a killing.

I called up Fidelity this morning for basic account maintenance.

It asked for SSN and then it said "MyVoice" had been verified before transferring me to a human. My first thought was that is pretty cool. And my second thought was, wait a minute, scams are being done with AI generated voice nowadays.

You actually provided your SSN over phone?

And a legit company asked for it?

I called Fidelity Investments so I knew it was legit.

Heck, everyone’s got my SSN (but not mothers maiden name or name of first pet)

Got it, yes. Asked for it as verification... I've never heard of that, ever. I've been asked to give the last 4 numbers of my SSN. I've been asked to give a full credit card number. Never been asked for my full SSN though.

Oh sorry. I misspoke, yes it was just the last 4 digits (and then voice verified).

I know that no one could have seen this coming but Trump media is down 25% so far today. All the maga dopes who bought in at the peak are never getting their money back.

I read somewhere that it has more demand for shorting than almost any stock in history (that wasn't already officially going bankrupt).

Wait for the "Thanks Joe Biden" posts that will be coming shortly. It never happens if Joe wasn't driving the economy into the ground. ;)

The Russian's and Saudi's that were backing much of the money that was invested are really not all that interested in getting their money back through that stock. They have other longer term interests they are expecting to pay off.

The "silent majority" were trying to Gamestop it. It went from a high of $79 to $48 and dropping today. Still way too high. That company is bleeding money.

I thought I read that 6 months ago, they publicly stated they weren't sure they could continue as a going concern. I'm sure Maria Bartiromo highly recommends it as a BUY.

I wouldn't take much from the stock price. It's mostly just a way to legalize bribery from businesses and foreign countries.

I have wondered if Maria really believes what she spouts or if she's doing it to help her career. Either way, it's unfortunate. I liked her in the early morning CNBC show.

This phenomenon of people openly wishing the stock market death is just so amazing to me. Even in a country as polarized as ours, you would think that people would not want to knowingly inflict self-harm. Yet that's where we are. I've seen it on social media, where people are crapping on the stock market's performance as "propped up by Biden administration lies."

My own mother, a Trumper, has multiple times stated that she has no idea why the stock market is this good, but that she hopes it falls to where "it should be" so people don't give Biden credit for it. This is not someone who is 40 and 2 decades away from retirement, who can endure some short-term ill-wishing on the market because they'll be good by the 2040s when they consider retiring and Trump is in his 6th term. This is someone who is 75 and 10 years into retirement, directly drawing funds out of her investments to fucking live on - with a brain-damaged spouse who likely is going to need more care (and money to pay for it) sooner than later!

I just can't, as the kids say.

Your mother's perspective highlights the complexity of the situation, where personal beliefs can override practical considerations, impacting not only individuals but also their loved ones and their loved ones loved ones financial security... gotta love living in this day and age..

Tangent, but I kinda/sorta hope a 75-year-old's retirement funds are not sitting in equities....

That's usually not the best strategy for that age. But if you ask someone that age, I bet they are a little upset they aren't in equities. The S&P is up 30% over the past 12 months and 10% in 2024 already.

My brother recently spoke with their advisor and made some changes to their funds, but I didn't get the details.

There are differing rules of thumb about how much should be invested in equities vs bonds/fixed income. The 100 - age is one. There are also pretty reputable mutual funds that go with approx 60-40 for a more steady 6-8% growth target.

It comes down to numerous factors such as level of wealth, risk tolerance, availability of other income sources, expected life expectancy etc.

Personally, assuming retiree is not just living off social security, I would never go 100% into bonds/fixed income. I think 60-40 or 70-30 is a nice balance.

WTF today? Nasdaq up +1% around noon and closes down -1.4%.



EDIT: the r/wsb is blaming this guy





Who they say looks like this guy Arnold Vosloo from the Mummy. Had a good chuckle, I can see the resemblance if I squint, the bald head and the nose.

Don't worry, the stock market is back up today!

Well except for Trump Media, that's down another 9%.

That's a darn shame!

CPI just a tad higher than expected but I think most people now believe rate cuts will be pushed to Q3, and with the possibility that will be pushed even further. Doesn't help Joe.

According to graphic in link, biggest culprit for year-over-year increase is

Here’s the good news in a troubling inflation report

I don't understand why Auto Insurance is the big outlier. I wonder if its because the big insurers are jacking up auto rates to make up for the losses in the other areas like Home insurance.

Housing made me check Zillow and it says my home price has gone up 2% in the past 30 days. Not going to complain but that's just ridiculous for boring suburbia north of Atlanta.

For new cars, my baseline is checking Truecar on base model Corolla. Market average is -8.4% of MSRP which is better than the deal I got last Dec.

Auto insurance has just gotten ridiculous. Another industry crying poor while reporting record profits.

My wife is an insurance agent and a ton of things are coming into play. Insurers are still trying to get some of the "covid rebates" back they gave when people weren't driving. Repair costs have also increased a ton with all the advanced tech in cars and they are a little behind reacting to inflation. My wife convinced me to get a CRV in February of 2020 (right before covid) and it has been a great move. That car is one of the cheapest to insure out there.

I just signed the lease on a 2024 BMW 3 series today. Can't wait to see what happens to my rates!

My homeowners rates went up $400 and near as I can tell, it's almost entirely due to the $50K+ increase in the insured value to rebuild.

A great 2-3 days. Not fun :(

It was doing well this morning but think chatter about/odds Israel responding increased.

My home taxes went up by $4K for the second year in a row.

That means house value went up quite a bit? So that helps the sting

Yes, and I can't argue the valuation. It still doesn't help pay the bill though.

As Joe says ... "take the win".

Damn. That's People's Republic of Clarke level increases (that's actually more than any single increase we've endured to date tbh)

That's because that wasn't the number. I don't why I wrote it that wrong. The evaluation went up $40k for the second year in a row. The bill is not close to $4k.

Sent from my SM-S916U using Tapatalk

Jerome being the adult in the room. Pretty much agree with the call, inflation is still not tamed. Hopefully, the markets won't be too disappointed, go thru the acceptance process, and accept the new reality of no cut probably until after elections at the earliest.

Stock Chart Icon
On other news, DJT down -14% today even with their just announced streaming plan.

Remove the Trump name and it's a penny stock. There are lot of MAGA people probably losing their life savings trying to prop it up as some weird political statement.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000652597951

on topic, good conversation

Maybe Sep, maybe Dec, maybe Mar 2025.

Would be great if there were 2-3 consecutive reports of CPI/PPE decreasing but my guess is unlikely. Too late to help Joe any, the economy/markets is going to be what it is in Nov.

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/04/17/wall...ntil-2025.html

DJT was up like 15% yesterday bro.

I know where I'm going to YOLO my savings!

No. It's not MAGA Mom and Pop money from under the mattress.

It's outside groups, likely foreign, getting around the limits on donating to political candidates.

Yesterday was one entity injecting $50,000,000 to keep the price up.

Oh I know in the grand scheme of things that's what happening. There are MAGA people dumping their life savings into this stock though trying to prop it up. They think Trump is a financial genius and that they're going to ride his coattails to riches. Every time they think they're the silent majority and they can make an impact on things like this they get a rude awakening.

Last week was brutal. Markets working through the gyrations of 5 steps of acceptance.

Glad to see the (tech) markets making back about half of it so far this week. Today's futures looks green also.



On other news, Trump set to be $1.2B richer on paper soon ... but not you.

GDP growing much slower than expected. Personal Consumption rate higher than expected. You guys are drinking too much Crystal Pepsi & Dr. Pepper Coconut!

The S&P 500 is tanking but at least Trump Media is up!

Thanks Joe Biden!

Jerome to talk this afternoon and PMI out this morning.

Pure guess that he'll stand pat now, but express concern at inflation stickiness, and (new) hint that rate hikes may be in the picture.

The question now is which is more important. Stamping out inflation, or causing a recession (and possibly handing Trump a major issue re: economy).

I saw someone this morning call it "the most important FMOC meeting of our lives," which I am taking as a sign that I probably need to go touch some grass :-)

Or smoke some soon-to-be-legalized "grass"!


Happy I was somewhat wrong, he said below that hikes unlikely in next move. Markets are liking that.

But gotta say I hope this isn't another one of his "transitory" foopah and he has now missed a chance to nip it in the bud by raising rates.


I did read somewhere that smaller banks (I think like < $10B or relatively peanuts) are under a lot of pressure with the higher rates already. The worry is even higher rates will cause some of them to fail.


EDIT: whoops, Jerome kept on talking and we went south

I don't know how Erdogan stays in power (well, rhetorical question).

https://www.cnbc.com/2024/05/03/turk...-in-april.html
There was a time when he was lowering interest rates when inflation was increasing. I guess the US shouldn't complain too much about our interest rate around 5.5%.


I have no idea how Turkiye pulls itself out of this. Hard to believe Erdogan will ask the IMF for some bailout as there'll be some strict conditions for it (see Greece circa 2010's).

Oh yeah baby!

Happy days are here again (for now).