The Stock Market thread

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

My dumbest hurdle to buying crypto is I'm not sure how to even start - like getting a wallet, etc.

SI

Coinbase and Robinhood make it really easy.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Lathum

Coinbase and Robinhood make it really easy.

Ok on coinbase. Robinhood isn't seeing any of my money after their nonsense last year with restricting trading. Any other options?

SI

[lungs]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Ok on coinbase. Robinhood isn't seeing any of my money after their nonsense last year with restricting trading. Any other options?

SI

I like Coinbase as a simple option. That’s where I do my automatic Bitcoin purchases. Another option would probably be Binance.US. Fees might be better on Binance. The advantage of Coinbase or Binance over Robinhood would be that you would be able to withdraw your crypto into a hardware wallet if you would so choose to go that route. Robinhood is basically a Crypto IOU at this point.

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Ok on coinbase. Robinhood isn't seeing any of my money after their nonsense last year with restricting trading. Any other options?

SI

Maybe crypto.com but I havent explored them

[Hammer]

Coinbase has significantly higher fees than Coinbase Pro. So I would strongly suggest moving to Coinbase Pro. The interface is slightly more complex, but you will soon get the hang of it. That is the only downside. The standard Coinbase platform is taking you to the cleaners fee wise.

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I have invested a decent amount in to Bitcoin the last 6 weeks or so and plan to hold. A buddy put me on to Cardano. Thinks by 2030 it will be worth close to 1K. Not sure it will be that much, but hell, even it it goes to $50-$100 I would have an insane amount of money.

Your buddy has probably watched too much youtube. The market cap of Cardano is $35 billion. For it to x2 it would have to have a mc of $70 billion. x20 $700 billion. That figure would surpass Bitcoin. x1000 is like the entire stock market added together perhaps, so not going to happen.

x1000 is only realistically possible with small market cap projects.

Cardano, Dogecoin and Shiba are all pretty crap projects in my opinion. Plenty out there doing the same thing. But they do have good sized mc's as they have a public following. That is extremely valuable. It seems sometimes having that following is more important than the actual quality of the project.

Cardano is a layer 1 smart contract platform. It is behind Solana, Fantom, Avalanche, Atom, and numerous others in terms of its technical development. Yet, its is no.2 in scp's behind only Etheruem in terms of mc.

I don't think anyone can tell you what the best SCP to invest in is. Its a fairly high risk, high reward area. I own give or take $1000 of all of the above, bar Avalanche. That one has high "inflation". The entire supply of tokens increase around 30% each year, out of thin air. Which devalues the existing tokens. They all have some inflation, which I am sure sounds scammy.

Yet all of those SCPs have exploded over the past year in value, like x100, to become big players. Where they go from here is anyones guess. But now they have big MCs, those type of gains are gone. I managed to get Solana at $25, rode it to $260, now its $90.

I linked on to a channel called Investswers on YouTube. Great education. Because of him I was taking profits through the profit cycle, so having sold some Solana at over $200 and then again over $225 and then again over $250 the drop back to $90 is easier to stomach. Just 5% each time really helps cement the gains and pay for projects which don't go as you hoped.

[Edward64]

Waiting for the mass capitulation to happen soon so we can start the healing process. Small stock Russell is already in bear territory, decrease 20%+ from Nov highs. Nasdaq is down about 17%.

Good thing Apple had some great news. Also good that my 401k deductions & investments are on auto-pilot.

[Edward64]

Thanks on the tip on Coinbase. I will have to check into that.

[NobodyHere]

I put some money in my index funds this past friday so any crash today is purely my fault.

[Edward64]

Keep buying your index funds, you're our FOFC lucky investments charm (for now).

Nice 3 days of gains. Still a semi-big hole to climb back into black though.

Google reports 20-1 stock split. In theory it doesn't matter, doesn't change the fundamentals. But it makes my portfolio look better.

[albionmoonlight]

Meta/Facebook down ~20% on shitty earnings report.

I would imagine that due to the public nature of the company, there are some folks with portfolios way overskewed with that one company (like people just having GE and Ford back in the day). They will not wake up happy tomorrow.

[Edward64]

I've always thought FB was pretty much a one trick pony. I did buy a small amount after they said they would be focusing on metaverse last year so stock wise, impact will be minimal.

But even though FB is not the top 5 holdings in my various growth ETF/MF (that would have been a red flag for me), they probably are in the top 10-15 so it'll hurt some tomorrow. Hopefully it'll be limited to FB and not bunch of other tech stocks.

Need to contain the contagion that is FB.

[flere-imsaho]

The problem with Facebook is that it's run by Mark Zuckerberg, a college dropout who was a decent coder back in the day and stole a very marketable idea from others and made it work. This is the guy they're relying on to chart a successful course into the future for a mature company.

Jobs & Gates put people in senior decisions and listened to them, especially on topics where they knew they didn't have expertise (e.g. manufacturing / supply chain). Jobs had Ive for design, for goodness' sake. And the Google founders even went out and rented a CEO for 10 years because they had enough self-awareness to realize they didn't have the experience/incliniation to do that needed to be done at the moment.

I know Facebook has other executives, including the much-ballyhooed Sandberg, but there's nothing to suggest from the multiple articles about FB over the years that they are allowed to deviate much from his overall vision.

Yeah, it's worked so far, although decidedly on the back of a monopolistic situation, but if I was an investor I'd definitely be waiting for the music to stop.

Honestly, the best thing for that company would be if Zuckerberg got bored and walked away.

[Edward64]

Another day, another fugly looking futures day.

Contemplating whether I should just sell the small amount of my FB right now. I figure any rebound will take a while.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

The problem with Facebook is that it's run by Mark Zuckerberg, a college dropout who was a decent coder back in the day and stole a very marketable idea from others and made it work. This is the guy they're relying on to chart a successful course into the future for a mature company.

Jobs & Gates put people in senior decisions and listened to them, especially on topics where they knew they didn't have expertise (e.g. manufacturing / supply chain). Jobs had Ive for design, for goodness' sake. And the Google founders even went out and rented a CEO for 10 years because they had enough self-awareness to realize they didn't have the experience/incliniation to do that needed to be done at the moment.

I know Facebook has other executives, including the much-ballyhooed Sandberg, but there's nothing to suggest from the multiple articles about FB over the years that they are allowed to deviate much from his overall vision.

Yeah, it's worked so far, although decidedly on the back of a monopolistic situation, but if I was an investor I'd definitely be waiting for the music to stop.

Honestly, the best thing for that company would be if Zuckerberg got bored and walked away.

They're rich beyond my wildest dreams so they know what they're doing. But I thought it was weird that they just blew up their main product over the past 5+ years. I know everyone chases short term returns but damn.

[Ksyrup]

Whoops!

Ilya Lichtenstein, a tech entrepreneur and Y combinator alum.

Heather Morgan, a Forbes columnist.

Today they were arrested for trying to launder billions in stolen crypto. They face up to 20 years in prison. pic.twitter.com/iUNRJDfVfL

— Fintwit (@fintwit_news) February 8, 2022

[Kodos]

Whoopsie!

[sterlingice]

Billions. Billions! I have a feeling this happens quite a bit and we just heard about this one to try and make an example

SI

[Ksyrup]

I'm not convinced there's not more to this than meets the eye. Are we sure that's not the same person? Is there really a wife?

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Billions. Billions! I have a feeling this happens quite a bit and we just heard about this one to try and make an example

There is a ton of money laundering in the crypto space. They got caught because they weren't rich to begin with.

[sovereignstar v2]

I had some nice equity in my old house and after selling it I've got some investing to do. I was looking more into Vanguard's international funds and am wondering what people's thoughts are on emerging markets like China, Taiwan, and India. Apparently the international stock fund I've been using for my retirement accounts is pretty heavy developed vs emerging (like 3:1), so not a whole lot of diversification. I don't pay a lot of attention to foreign stocks, but having a larger chunk of something like TSM seems like a good idea.

Edit: I'd probably break my stock funds into something like 70% US, 15% developed international, 15% emerging markets

Edit #2: Good article on the subject -- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/b...cks-risks.html

LOL

In short, this is probably not the ideal time to plunge into emerging market investments for the first time.

[Edward64]

My portfolio is still pretty bruised from Jan but past couple days has helped.

House price on Zillow has continued to creep up. We're past the target that we said we would sell the house, pocket the profits, and go live in an apartment (or travel trailer). Reality though is probably have to wait until daughter finishes college, finds a job, and settle in somewhere.

FWIW read the below article on MS vs FB metaverse experience. I do think it'll be a big thing in the next 10-20 years.

I tested Meta and Microsoft’s metaverse apps — which one is closest to ‘Ready Player One’? | Laptop Mag

The “Ready Player One” metaverse concept that everyone keeps buzzing about is already damn-near here, but folks seem to be none the wiser. I’ve tested Meta and Microsoft’s metaverse apps via the Oculus Quest 2, and I’ve got the scoop on which tech giant is closest to nailing “Ready Player One” nirvana. Follow along to see which metaverse app takes the crown: Microsoft-acquired AltspaceVR or Meta-owned Horizon Worlds?

[Ksyrup]

I just checked Zillow for the first time in several months and mine jumped another $20K. That was the estimate, although the range was a fairly large $65K. Still, that's effing insane.

If this was 5-6 years from now, I'd be tempted to sell. But like Edward64, I've still got one to put through college and we're not quite ready to downsize as much as we'd probably need to. It's kinda like the car situation - yeah, your car is worth way more if you sell it used, but what are you replacing it with in this same market?

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

I had some nice equity in my old house and after selling it I've got some investing to do. I was looking more into Vanguard's international funds and am wondering what people's thoughts are on emerging markets like China, Taiwan, and India. Apparently the international stock fund I've been using for my retirement accounts is pretty heavy developed vs emerging (like 3:1), so not a whole lot of diversification. I don't pay a lot of attention to foreign stocks, but having a larger chunk of something like TSM seems like a good idea.

Edit: I'd probably break my stock funds into something like 70% US, 15% developed international, 15% emerging markets

Edit #2: Good article on the subject -- https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/17/b...cks-risks.html

I don't have much internationally. I'm pretty much all US funds, ETFs, stocks.

I did own a China fund MCHFX in the 00's and early 10's, made a nice profit but but sold it all. I did also own some Alibaba but sold that. From what I've seen, international funds have lagged the US over the past 10 years (or so).

Think China has the most potential. Never really thought about Taiwan. India has been lagging China and seems to be on a slower growth trajectory long term.

Depends on your risk tolerance and time horizon. If you need your money in the near term, then IMO stick with US funds or just put it into S&P index fund. I'm into Tech so I'm probably overweight there. But do have a good amount in index & dividend paying funds.

[Ksyrup]

Speaking of Zillow's housing valuations...

Zillow lost $881 million flipping houses in a year when the median existing-home price rose 17%. https://t.co/62DYykGDzQ

— Charles Forelle (@charlesforelle) February 10, 2022

[albionmoonlight]

With inflation at 7.5%, you lose half your money in 9 years. The only way to outperform that consistently, that I have found, is crypto. Just this year I’ve already lost half my money.

— rcm (@rcm____) February 13, 2022

I chuckled

[flere-imsaho]

LOL

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

I had some nice equity in my old house and after selling it I've got some investing to do. I was looking more into Vanguard's international funds and am wondering what people's thoughts are on emerging markets like China, Taiwan, and India. Apparently the international stock fund I've been using for my retirement accounts is pretty heavy developed vs emerging (like 3:1), so not a whole lot of diversification. I don't pay a lot of attention to foreign stocks, but having a larger chunk of something like TSM seems like a good idea.

I still firmly believe China is a ticking economic time bomb. They've been propping up their economy for a long, long time to show growth, and sooner or later, the bill is going to come due. It keeps not happening, but I really do think they're going to eventually have an economic implosion. Maybe for short term investments, but anything long in China scares the shit out of me.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Coffee Warlord

I still firmly believe China is a ticking economic time bomb. They've been propping up their economy for a long, long time to show growth, and sooner or later, the bill is going to come due. It keeps not happening, but I really do think they're going to eventually have an economic implosion. Maybe for short term investments, but anything long in China scares the shit out of me.

I don't disagree with you but I've been hearing about their impending implosion since mid 2000s. Maybe in a free(er) market economy but with their strong government central planning, unsure.

[Edward64]

Good news for Ukraine and the stock market. Nice win for Biden if Russia truly is backing off.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/02/14/stoc...lose-news.html

U.S. stock futures jumped on Tuesday morning after Russia appeared to be backing away from an immediate invasion of Ukraine, cooling geopolitical tensions that have knocked the stock market down the last three days.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it had begun returning some troops to deployment bases after training exercises near the Ukrainian border.

Futures tied to the Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 440 points, or 1.3%. S&P 500 futures climbed 1.6% and Nasdaq 100 futures advanced 2.1%. All three major benchmarks were down in the three prior sessions. The S&P 500 is about 8% from its record high.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said troops who had recently been posted to Russia’s southern and western military districts — which share a border with Ukraine — had completed their drills and “have already begun loading onto rail and road transport and will begin moving to their military garrisons today.”

Bullard spoke last week and said Fed needed to be more aggressive to fight inflation and market took it to mean at least one .5 basis point increase (vs .25) by Jul.
Do Fed governors speak independently or are they coordinated? Meaning did Powell ask Bullard to speak out to get the markets ready for a .5 and reduce any surprises?

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard told CNBC’s Steve Liesman on Monday that the central bank needs to be aggressive in fighting inflation. The consumer price index rose last month at its fastest year-over-year pace since 1982, leading Citigroup and Goldman Sachs to increase their rate hike outlook for 2022 to seven.

“I do think we need to front-load more of our planned removal of accommodation than we would have previously. We’ve been surprised to the upside on inflation. This is a lot of inflation,” Bullard said.

[Lathum]

I put a bunch of money in crypto this morning so naturally it’s tanking.

[Kodos]

Tanking. It's what crypto does!

[Hammer]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Tanking. It's what crypto does!

So strange that people think that. Take any 2 year period in its history and hold Bitcoin, there is no point that you wouldn't be up considerably.

All you have to do is hold. When it's up just make sure you take your profits.

Oh, don't buy crap like Doge or Shiba I guess. If in doubt, buy Bitcoin.

[thesloppy]

Originally Posted by Hammer

So strange that people think that. Take any 2 year period in its history and hold Bitcoin, there is no point that you wouldn't be up considerably.

[I. J. Reilly]

See, you just had to sell on 12/17/17. Easy!

[Hammer]

Okay maybe you can cherry pick 2 years. Zoom out to 3 years. That ATH spike in December 2017 was a blink under $20k.

It hit $68k last year and sits around $37k now in the supposed crash. So even if you bought at the absolute peak in 2017 you could still sell for close to double right now in this "crash".

If you want to cherry pick positive charts over 3 years you could probably turn $3.5k in to $68k?

But ultimately history as shown you can buy at the worst time possible and still come out smelling of roses if you just hold.

It has treated me very well. Selling small chunks of profits really seals in your gains. Playing with house money now. Only 10% of my portfolio but it has far outperformed everything else.

[Edward64]

S&P and Nasdaq in correction (loss 10+%).

Frakking Putin. Futures are up moderately tonight which seems weird to me.

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Edward64

S&P and Nasdaq in correction (loss 10+%).

Frakking Putin. Futures are up moderately tonight which seems weird to me.

Dow is about 15 pts of being in correction territory. Unlike the relatively quick bounce back from 1Q 2020, I'm thinking this will last somewhat longer.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Dow is about 15 pts of being in correction territory. Unlike the relatively quick bounce back from 1Q 2020, I'm thinking this will last somewhat longer.

Futures now down 400+ on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

SI

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

Futures now down 400+ on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

SI

Thank you Sir. May I have another.

[Lathum]

I would advise against looking at your portfolio today.

[molson]

Dollar looking strong against the Ruble!

[Edward64]

Originally Posted by Lathum

I would advise against looking at your portfolio today.

Jokes on you. S&P and Nasdaq came back from -2.5% or so can now in the black.

Craziness. Maybe because we chickened out on SWIFT?

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Jokes on you. S&P and Nasdaq came back from -2.5% or so can now in the black.

Craziness. Maybe because we chickened out on SWIFT?

Looks like even the cryptos rebounded after getting hammered earlier today. S&P is up 50.

I don't get markets.

[BYU 14]

Originally Posted by Edward64

Jokes on you. S&P and Nasdaq came back from -2.5% or so can now in the black.

Craziness. Maybe because we chickened out on SWIFT?

Possibly, of maybe in reaction to targeting Oligarchs and banks vs energy

[Solecismic]

Following this overnight, there was some call for the SWIFT ban and it looked likely at one point. At that point, futures were down more than 600 points.

When Germany and Italy blocked the SWIFT ban, it turned around and is actually up for the day. The market was adjusting to price in the likely cost of dealing with Russia and it turns out the invasion is a good thing for our pocketbooks. Yay, us. Sorry, 40 million Ukrainians.

I guess we're all in on the gamble that Putin and Xi will be satisfied with their gains. We will have to accept recession if and only if they cross a line - taking over a sovereign, but not NATO-aligned country apparently isn't that line.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Solecismic

Following this overnight, there was some call for the SWIFT ban and it looked likely at one point. At that point, futures were down more than 600 points.

When Germany and Italy blocked the SWIFT ban, it turned around and is actually up for the day. The market was adjusting to price in the likely cost of dealing with Russia and it turns out the invasion is a good thing for our pocketbooks. Yay, us. Sorry, 40 million Ukrainians.

I guess we're all in on the gamble that Putin and Xi will be satisfied with their gains. We will have to accept recession if and only if they cross a line - taking over a sovereign, but not NATO-aligned country apparently isn't that line.

I might be a bit nervous if I were in Taiwan or maybe Georgia about now. They're not coming for you now, but they are in the next decade or so

EDIT: And, yeah, these sanctions were clearly not from the perspective of "what would be most effective" but "of the things that do minimal harm back home, what's the most we could do". Basically, Russia and China know that if they can make the American or European populaces feel some economic pain, those sanctions are off the board because, I dunno, enough of our population is too decadent to make some sacrifices to save people on the other side of the world that the leaders can't impose those sorts of sanctions. And they're right.

SI

[Edward64]

Lessons learn. Period leading up to War is bad for markets. The period actual fighting is good for the markets (so far).

I really don't understand this and will be interested in reading the analysis on why market has been up significantly the past 2 days.

How does the war in Ukraine lessen the fear of inflation and Fed increasing rates (which I believe were the main drivers of markets going into correction before the war started). Best guess is a relief rally since we did not go nuclear with SWIFT.

[Edward64]

Okay, so this makes sense as a reason why the markets are up significantly. Another blurb I would love to believe. The call might have happened but no faith in Putin's good intentions.

Dow surges 500 points and Nasdaq erases weekly loss as Moscow said to agree to talks with Ukraine - MarketWatch

The Nasdaq Composite was looking at a positive finish for the week as stocks gained altitude on the back of news reports, citing a summary of a call between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping provided by China’s Foreign Ministry, which said Russia was ready to conduct negotiations with Ukraine.

[Edward64]

In addition to what's going to hit tomorrow (anyone with predictions?), if you own BP I'm thinking you're going to be in an extra world of hurt.

LONDON, Feb 27 (Reuters) - BP is abandoning its stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft in an abrupt and costly end to three decades of operating in the energy-rich country, marking the most significant move yet by a Western company in response to Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Rosneft accounts for around half of BP's oil and gas reserves and a third of its production and divesting the 19.75% stake will result in charges of up to $25 billion, the British company said, without saying how it plans to extricate itself.

BP chief executive Bernard Looney to resign from board of Rosneft with immediate effect