The Stock Market thread

[cuervo72]

Don't know when my 401k transactions take place (should I know that? maybe I should know that) but hey, buy low, sell high. Was always told volatility is good, right?

[Arles]

Originally Posted by Arles

yeah, September is usually a bad month. Tread lightly:

We survived, but Sept ended poorly. I'm ready for October.

[Edward64]

Good start to October. But we'll need several like days to climb out of the -4.5% Sept hole.

Evergrand is old news. Thank you Merck! I think investors can see light at the end of the tunnel into the "new" and "acceptable deaths" normal.

[Hammer]

Crypto works off of a 4 year cycle due to the bitcoin halving. Traditionally these next 3 months are the strongest of the cycle. Check out Q4 of 2013 and 2017 for the huge gains.

With doubt looming over the world markets right now it seems worth consideration. For those who just want to dip their toe in, the Microstategy stock follows bitcoin fairly closely as they have the biggest holding of all the companies in the world.

My current holdings are in Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana, Elrond, plus a bunch of other smaller holdings. Solana is currently up from $1.50 to $172 since Jan 21, by far my best performer with over x100 gains. I have taken profits along the way and didn't get in on the Jan 21 price so reality is more like x20 for me in real cash terms.

Only 10% of my entire portfolio is in crypto as I am risk averse. Hope you guys don't mind me throwing the topic out there.

[Edward64]

Thanks for the note on MicroStrategy. Their 52 week L and H are $145 to $1,315 and currently at $620. A little to wild for me!

[Edward64]

Checked zillow about 5 weeks ago and house price rose nicely. Today, house price has not budged significantly.

Also, looked at Toyota Corolla deals around me using truecar.com. No deals around me, the basic & cheapest is about $1k above MSRP.

I can't say that I've noticed food prices have gone up though.

One of the underlying market worries is inflation. Powell says transitionary but not sure I 100% believe him since who's dealt with global pandemic impact before? There's a CNN article about how the global supply chain is at risk etc. I'm starting to feel that higher than past decade+ inflation is going to be with us for a little while (2+ years?).

A key measure of inflation hit a new 30-year high in August, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reported Friday.

The price index tracking consumer spending — the PCE price index — was up 4.3% over the 12 months ending in August. That was a faster pace than July's 4.2%. Inflation continued to run at the fastest pace since January 1991.

Stripping out food and energy prices, which tend to be volatile, the inflation measure stood at 3.6%, where it has been since June. It remains the fastest rate of so-called core inflation since March 1991 and well above the Federal Reserve's target of 2%.

Looking at the monthly rate of price increases, things were steady between July and August, and the pace was slower than earlier in the year.

The PCE inflation gauge is one of many, and they're not all pointing in the same direction: The consumer price inflation index came off a 13-year high in August, for example. But the PCE index is the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of inflation.

[NobodyHere]

Et tu, October?

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by NobodyHere

Et tu, October?

Might want to wait before splurging on your next date.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Thanks for the note on MicroStrategy. Their 52 week L and H are $145 to $1,315 and currently at $620. A little to wild for me!

Much like bitcoin. I love the volatility. I just set a sell order when an asset hits a specific price. I believe in the long term future of bitcoin and crypto, so throwing a small sum in is a no brainer for me. Don't need the money, sooner or later it hits the sky and then you grab it.

Higher the vol the better for me. 90% of my portfolio is in the boring stuff. If it moves up and down a lot the sooner you can grab it on the upside. Remove your initial investment and play with the winnings. Rinse and repeat.

Traditional markets are quickly losing their appeal. But I am not that far away for being able to retire so need to reign it in some. But I can see why the kids are so high on crypto.

[Edward64]

Feels like we're going off a cliff with the strong & multiple day stock market losses. Unfortunately, I've hit my 401k contributions so no more dollar cost averaging during this downturn.

Bracing for a -10+% correction. Let's get it over with.

Evergrande was a red herring. Inflation worries a little less so. Think its uncertainty on debt ceiling and the 1.2+3.5T bills driving this.

[Arles]

A lot of growth stocks hit (or below) the 200 MA yesterday. We may dip a bit more, but I think we bounce near these levels. Everyone on Twitter was "going cash" yesterday - that usually a sign the bottom is near

[Edward64]

Nice comeback today. And futures are nicely positive right now.

[Edward64]

Another nice day, thank you banks for nice earnings.

But it seems like its been 1 step forward and 1.5 steps back recently.

[NobodyHere]

Stock market is looking good in pre-trading today.

[albionmoonlight]

I don't know if this should go in the COVID thread, the Biden thread, or this thread since it is all related, but my totally anecdotal experience is that there are some real COVID issues still going on that are going to have knock off effects.

I work in downtown Raleigh. And Pre-COVID, things were booming. There were a couple of big restaurant/cafes that were planning to open that were on top of a lot that already existed. Now, all of those have been put on hold, and a lot of places closed, such that the only real easy grab-n-go lunch options are Subway and a pizza by the slice joint. That makes sense b/c so many of those places depended on in-person office workers that are only now sort of half coming back to work in person.

And speaking of supply chains, we have a lot of toner on back order and it keeps getting delayed. So, as a law office, we are legitimately in danger of running out of it and, with it, the ability to print documents. We have several large things to print and send to the Court, and we are having discussions about how to do it.

Maybe boosters and Delta running its course will be enough to get people back into the office. And maybe the government's renewed focus on supply chain issues will clear out the backlogs. And maybe this is just the end effects of something that will be gone in 3 months.

But, for now, it does feel like the economy is on shakier footing than a booming market would imply.

[cuervo72]

"Supply chain" is becoming a semi-joke with my wife.

"What, Subway doesn't have Roast Beef anymore?"
"Supply chain!"

"They didn't have any ____ at the store."
"Supply chain!"

[RainMaker]

The supply chain thing sure seems like a way for retail business to get people buying Christmas gifts early. Not unlike when the meat industry told us how we wouldn't be able to get meat if they didn't pass a bunch of beneficial laws for them.

I think the economy has always been on shaky footing. Companies refused to look past tomorrow and when Covid hit, we saw how ill-prepared most were. So it's not a surprise to see any minor issues turning into major ones. Companies invested in stock buybacks, not contingency plans.

[lungs]

Bitcoin seems poised to break another all-time high as it passed $60,000 again today.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

"Supply chain" is becoming a semi-joke with my wife.

"What, Subway doesn't have Roast Beef anymore?"
"Supply chain!"

"They didn't have any ____ at the store."
"Supply chain!"

Why didn't you mow the lawn?
Supply chain

Why are you looking at me like that?
Supply chain

[Edward64]

Another nice, solid day (whew).

[Arles]

Just a small plug. I'm started a free substack where I go through my trading/investing philosophy and do a stock/ETF writeup each week. It's completely free and I figure since I go through this analysis anyway when investing - why not publish it. If you are interested, feel free to sign up:

https://arlie.substack.com/

[Edward64]

Tesla is back up over 800. It had been languishing in lows 700's for a while but crept up even with down market past couple months.

Kicking myself for selling all my Greyscale but couldn't quite handle all the ups and down with bitcoin. A little bit too much even for my "fun" portfolio. I am glad I sold all my SPCE and made a tidy profit, don't think Branson's company is quite all together yet.

I did my portfolio on Fri since there's been a nice comeback past couple weeks. I've regained approx 50% of what I lost in Sept so looking (hoping) for a strong earnings season and Oct.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Arles

Just a small plug. I'm started a free substack where I go through my trading/investing philosophy and do a stock/ETF writeup each week. It's completely free and I figure since I go through this analysis anyway when investing - why not publish it. If you are interested, feel free to sign up:

You definitely have more of a "methodology" than me. For funds/ETFs, I start off with Kiplinger/Money/Morningstar highly rated ones - value & growth but not doing a lot of international.

For stocks, I do stick with the ones I know best (tech). For speculative ones in my fun portfolio, it's whatever catches my eye (e.g. Bumble).

Suggestion for you to consider. Always fun looking at a person's portfolio and monthly performance reports?

[Arles]

Yeah, I start with the fundamentals and then look for good technical charts. A lot of people just rely on technical - which is OK for short term. An example here is comparing TDOC and ATVI (my recent writeup). Both have similar charts, but ATVI has much stronger fundamentals at this point. Still, you could also go with TDOC - it just may take a little more time to reach your targets (with additional risk).

[Edward64]

Another nice (burp) satisfying day.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by lungs

Bitcoin seems poised to break another all-time high as it passed $60,000 again today.

New ATH set, $100,000 per coin next?

[Edward64]

I swear if it goes back down to $25K I'll buy some!

[Brian Swartz]

Originally Posted by albionmoonlight

Maybe boosters and Delta running its course will be enough to get people back into the office. And maybe the government's renewed focus on supply chain issues will clear out the backlogs. And maybe this is just the end effects of something that will be gone in 3 months.

But, for now, it does feel like the economy is on shakier footing than a booming market would imply.

On the retail end, everything I'm hearing is in the direction of expecting the winter to be get worse not better on the supply chain front. Coin shortages are showing up again, paper towel/toilet paper is thinning out, a lot of bottled beverages due to plastic supply issues .. in general more empty shelves are appearing. The big difference is that the public in general is not quite as understanding of this as they were a year ago, so I'm curious to see how that goes from a customer point of view.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I swear if it goes back down to $25K I'll buy some!

You seem more like the type that would be all in investing in Shiba Inu.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by lungs

You seem more like the type that would be all in investing in Shiba Inu.

@$0.00002816 a little too pricey for me!

[Edward64]

Nice day!

Unfortunately Apple and Amazon disappointed after hours so I'm guessing it'll be fugly tomorrow.

[Edward64]

I've always thought of Facebook (and Snap) as a one trick pony and haven't invested in them.

If FB rebranding to Meta really means they are going to give us "Ready Player One", I think I'll start building a position.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by Edward64

@$0.00002816 a little too pricey for me!

You should have listened! You could have more than doubled your money by now!

[Ksyrup]

There's a guy a few of us in my office are friendly with as business acquaintances and is somewhat in the same business as us. He's heavily into cryptocurrency. The screenshots he shared with us of various holdings he has and what he put in versus what they are worth now are mindboggling. This guy is serious - spends $500 a month to be part of some service that holds weekly calls, etc. He's got Bitcoin from when it was barely worth anything, and there's another one that he put $2800 in 18 months ago and it's worth over $4M right now. He said he's lost a few thousand on ones that never took off or tanked, but he never puts a ton into any one position because when they hit, a little turns into a lot.

I just find it all crazy. I've been in a dozen or more seminars explaining all of this stuff, and I still don't get it. More particularly, the value, but really, the whole thing doesn't make any sense to me. I'm too concrete a thinker for any of this to make sense. It's like science class used to be - I understand and acknowledge that what I'm hearing/reading is true, but I don't get how or why it works that way and I never will. That said, I've got $3-5K I could probably afford to lose on the off-chance it brings me multiples in return, so it's tempting to glean a bit of free advice off of him and take a small plunge.

[Kodos]

Investing in cryptos is basically gambling. I know that Bitcoin is terrible for the environment due to the "mining".

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by Edward64

I've always thought of Facebook (and Snap) as a one trick pony and haven't invested in them.

If FB rebranding to Meta really means they are going to give us "Ready Player One", I think I'll start building a position.

I lol'd.

In the metaverse. having coffee with a digitally reconstructed version of your deceased grandmother. You’re underwater of course, in the lost city of Atlantis and a giraffe swims by with something written on it.

It says “DRAFTKINGS FREE PLAY”.

SIGN ME UP SOUNDS SICK

— Michael Swander (@MichaelSwander) October 29, 2021

[GrantDawg]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Investing in cryptos is basically gambling. I know that Bitcoin is terrible for the environment due to the "mining".

I remember someone trying to get me into "mining" many, many years ago, but I really didn't understand it. I still don't, but boy do I wish I had did it then. I think that was really early on.

[Pyser]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

There's a guy a few of us in my office are friendly with as business acquaintances and is somewhat in the same business as us. He's heavily into cryptocurrency. The screenshots he shared with us of various holdings he has and what he put in versus what they are worth now are mindboggling. This guy is serious - spends $500 a month to be part of some service that holds weekly calls, etc. He's got Bitcoin from when it was barely worth anything, and there's another one that he put $2800 in 18 months ago and it's worth over $4M right now. He said he's lost a few thousand on ones that never took off or tanked, but he never puts a ton into any one position because when they hit, a little turns into a lot.

uhh...what? who wants to pool our money and get in on this $500 a month thing and turn a few thousand into a few million? ha.

[sterlingice]

We'll finally be able to afford that aircraft carrier!

SI

[PilotMan]

I love it when old posters randomly show up in random threads with comments as if they never left. Where have all the good guys gone?

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

We'll finally be able to afford that aircraft carrier!

SI

Perfectly happy with a Lambo.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Nice day!

Unfortunately Apple and Amazon disappointed after hours so I'm guessing it'll be fugly tomorrow.

Not quite that bad, didn't crash the entire market or Nasdaq. Both were down over 3+% but ended down around 2%. Could have been worse.

[Edward64]

Just did my monthly investment summary. I'm back to an all time high, Oct has erased the losses from the horrible month of Sept.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Investing in cryptos is basically gambling. I know that Bitcoin is terrible for the environment due to the "mining".

You sound like a guy that hasn't spent a lot of time looking in to crypto. Bitcoin is gold 2.0. A great store of valuable. The price fluctuations are fairly predictable if you understand the 4 year cycle concept, and the bitcoin halving.

Bitcoin will grow and grow. By the time it is mainstream it will no longer be the opportunity it is now.

The mining does use a lot of energy. However solar and wind is increasingly providing that power.

It really seems to me older people are often closed to new opportunities and technology. Often stuck in the past. Gold is the same price it was 10 years ago, although think about the inflation effect. A guy I was watching recently, stated that only 8% of the people investing in crypto are over 55.

There are many pitfalls that "noobs" will fall in to. But I have yet to meet anyone who has spent 100 hours learning about crypto not come out of it understanding it is here to stay. What a fantastic financial opportunity it is. Financially that 100 hours may be the best you ever spend. Although with every year that passes that opportunity becomes less as more people enter the market. People will just watch the price go up, and up and one day see the opportunity they missed.

The gains were just on a plate for this quarter.

Originally Posted by Hammer

Crypto works off of a 4 year cycle due to the bitcoin halving. Traditionally these next 3 months are the strongest of the cycle. Check out Q4 of 2013 and 2017 for the huge gains.

Price 1st of October 43k. Price 1st of November 61k. Expect November and December to provide similar excellent gains, and a price pullback fairly early 2022.

It will be interesting to see how this post ages. But outside of a black swan event such as a war or more extreme covid variant, I will stick my neck out and say crypto is a long way from gambling. It is far easier to make money than in traditional markets IMO, as the bitcoin halving and 4 year cycle map the price action out for us.

There are a couple of projects out there likely to yield larger gains the Bitcoin. Ethereum and Solana for example. But if you want a safe store of value Bitcoin is no.1. These blue chip companies are not throwing money at it without reason.

[thesloppy]

[Ksyrup]

On advice of the guy who seriously studies the stuff, my boss bought $700 of some cryptocurrency that they said have the same fundamentals of the one that went from $2800 to $4M. I told him I'm tempted to do the same just so I don't have to hear about it in 6 months when his $700 is worth $750K.

[Pyser]

guys just tell me where to put my money in crypto already.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by Pyser

guys just tell me where to put my money in crypto already.

Honestly the best advice I could give is to try and learn about crypto. Invest Answers on youtube is a great starting point. Just a string to your bow, you need to dig in to the fundamentals and basics for yourself. Bitcoin drives the market, a bit like the U.S. drives the world economy but even more so. Understand the Bitcoin halving and the impact it has. I started out by watching the videos Invest Answers put out several months previously. I did that because I wanted to see if that narrative the guy, James, was pushing actually worked out in the future. It certainly did.

I invested Solana in May on his recommendation, which has gone x11 in price in 4 months. But that is rare, most of the projects I bought in the summer are around x3/4. Solana, Ethereum, Polkadot, Fantom, Matic, Terra.

That said my best investment over the last month was "Cleanspark". A clean energy Bitcoin mining firm. This can be purchased through traditional routes. 85% up over the month. This was another recommendation from Invest Answers on youtube. The guy mentioned it last month, I bought it that day. Can't recommend this guy enough. Made me a lot of money. Cleanspark has outperformed Bitcoin, but would possibly crash harder if Bitcoin went down. A short term holding for me, while the bull market is in full swing. If you don't buy it, track it. That way before the next bull market you will have confidence on how these assets perform in good times.

I am conservative in crypto terms. You can view those projects above as businesses with real world use cases. They are big market cap projects, with billion dollar market caps. You can sort crypto projects by market cap.

Cryptocurrency Prices, Charts, and Crypto Market Cap | CoinGecko (Pg1)

I don't step in to the Wild West of crypto. That is where you can make the x100 gains, and equally lose money. Your Shiba, Dogecoin sort of projects. Those are the gambles that worked out. You won't ear about the others 10 "shit coins" we call them, that didn't.

So the message is be careful and don't jump in to random projects without careful consideration. Countless noobs jump in to projects and lose their money. Then they will tell you crypto is a scam. They went for a high risk project and lost.

I will be largely out of crypto by the end of the year. Get in, milk the bull run, get out. The summer was the best time to buy, prices are getting up there now. If you look at any of the top 20 projects in the link and view their price action you will see that. But most likely we have another couple of months of growth.

On the flip side watch the narrative spin coming from traditional banking. You can get 8% per annum just investing in a stable coin (its value doesn't move) on a billion dollar crypto bank platform like Celsius. They can't compete with that. You will hear narrative about energy consumption. Mining for gold eats up huge amounts of energy. You don't hear them talk about that. Traditional finance is threatened.

So my message is arm yourself with knowledge. At that point you can start to make decisions which will prove lucrative. You listen to the wrong shill on the net you are likely to come unstuck.

[Pyser]

so, not squid game crypto: Squid Game Cryptocurrency Scammers Make Off With $2.1 Million

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by Pyser

so, not squid game crypto: Squid Game Cryptocurrency Scammers Make Off With $2.1 Million

There are around 10,000 crypto projects. This is what happens when you buy the 8,875 ranked project. Most go to zero, some will go x10, some will go x100.

The media like to play on this stuff. Plenty of cryptos go to zero. Buying this stuff is gambling, like going to the casino. Unless you have inside information on a project I would stay clear. People will love to tell you they went x100 on Shiba or Doge. They won't bother to tell you about the other 9 projects they lost on.

I own around 10 projects. The lowest ranked is in the 40s with a $4.3 billion market cap. No chance of getting a x100 or even a x25 realistically. But I hit x11 on one at the top end, and the bottom end is a break even. Totally in a different league to what I have made in traditional markets.