On 1/6/2022 at 10:50 PM, Dougal said:

Sort of. If I want to buy a stock I short puts until I get the shares; if I want to sell when it hits my target, I short calls. It's not a quick flip, though; the holding period, if I lke the stock can be years. It works for me more often than not.

 

I'm just a little frustrated because I'm "underinvested" at the moment

 

Update from three weeks later: Hope you're still underinvested.  Been a very good place to be in the last 3 weeks. 😩

54 minutes ago, Gramarye said:

 

Update from three weeks later: Hope you're still underinvested.  Been a very good place to be in the last 3 weeks. 😩

Not as much; I got some shares put to me last Friday; but, taking the long view, it was at a price I was willing to pay.

Down 12 percent.

 

WHAT A YEAR SO FAR.

 

Tech (my poor Netflix) plus Noah's ARK fund = I've been doing a lot of mediation the last month.

Edited February 1, 20223 yr by TBideon

47 minutes ago, TBideon said:

Down 12 percent.

 

WHAT A YEAR SO FAR.

 

Tech (my poor Netflix) plus Noah's ARK fund = I've been doing a lot of mediation the last month.

 

Down 11% here, and it sounds like for similar reasons (I was heavy in NFLX, still am though I lightened a bit, and maybe should've stuck it out but, like I said, I kept a lot so the partial rebound so far is still very good for me, but I was worried it could easily keep going down further).  CRWD and NET had it rough, too.  And glad I sold out of several others in November (especially UPST, also LSPD and DOCU).  Still, was still heavily exposed and January was my worst month in years.

 

Just as a testament to how much the pandemic front-loaded tech growth, based on my tech-heavy portfolio: My 3-year average return is now about 22% and the S&P 500 is about 21%.  My one-year (last 12 months) is 1% and S&P 500 is 23%.  As in, my three-year average is still just above the S&P 500 even though I'm 22 percentage points back over the last 12 months.  That's because 2020 was an amazing year for tech companies--in part because of the pandemic making everyone else accelerate plans to go remote (or make formerly-hidebound companies suddenly wake up to the need to go remote when the execs would previously have been old-school, butts-need-to-be-in-seats-in-the-office-where-I-can-see-them managers).

A lot of tech growth was how much more internet would be needed to keep going through the whole thing. Everyone was updating and growing their websites quickly and drastically, beefing up their webstores, schools having to do all that internet work, governments adding new websites and constantly updating, app growth, video games, more streaming -- just more, more, more every day. That goes for Amazon too since they handle 50% of web traffic in the U.S. I feel that growth far overshadows their retail growth, especially profitability-wise. A lot of their retail growth was sales and volume growth rather than margin growth. Now with their bigness they don't have to fight to be cheapest anymore either which is good for them I suppose. They can go above MSRP.

Ouch!  Goodyear took it on the chin over inflation fears. Stock was down 25% midday to 16 and change..  I sold some March $14 puts; I'll buy at that price if it keeps sinking.

On 2/1/2022 at 10:10 AM, TBideon said:

Tech (my poor Netflix) plus Noah's ARK fund = I've been doing a lot of mediation the last month.

 

I wouldn't advise anyone to invest with ARK.  I don't think Cathie has any idea what she's doing.  All of the ARK funds are down 50+% in the last year (S&P 500 is +5-6% in that time).

 

There's a podcast interview from a couple interviews and basically she says she picks her stocks based on what Jesus tells her.

 

https://www.getreligion.org/getreligion/2021/8/29/reporting-on-faith-based-investment-guru-cathie-wood-do-your-homework-better

 

She essentially got lucky, riding the TSLA train for awhile.  Now that TSLA isn't appreciating 500% every few months, her funds are doing hilariously bad.  Weird...almost like a 60-year old didn't develop some new way to pick the best stocks and rather just got luck on a very large position.

Taking a flyer - almost literally.  I don't believe the China crash is Boeing's fault, so I have sold some $170 April puts for $3.90.  We'll see how this flight goes.  😉

2 hours ago, Dougal said:

Taking a flyer - almost literally.  I don't believe the China crash is Boeing's fault, so I have sold some $170 April puts for $3.90.  We'll see how this flight goes.  😉

I know this is the investing thread so I'll keep this short, but the 90 degree nose down position of the aircraft when it crashed is hard to understand.  A failure of the horizontal stabilizer / trim jack screw would lead to a loss of pitch control, but I guess I would have expected them to be able to pitch the aircraft somewhat even if it's inconsistent.  My guess is that this was either a deliberate act or a total loss of attitude control on the aircraft - perhaps multiple hydraulic system failures.  The point is that there's still a chance this was a mechanical failure (Boeing's fault), but it's very unlikely to be systemic like the 737 MAX given the years of service on the 737-800's.

7 minutes ago, Hootenany said:

I know this is the investing thread so I'll keep this short, but the 90 degree nose down position of the aircraft when it crashed is hard to understand.  A failure of the horizontal stabilizer / trim jack screw would lead to a loss of pitch control, but I guess I would have expected them to be able to pitch the aircraft somewhat even if it's inconsistent.  My guess is that this was either a deliberate act or a total loss of attitude control on the aircraft - perhaps multiple hydraulic system failures.  The point is that there's still a chance this was a mechanical failure (Boeing's fault), but it's very unlikely to be systemic like the 737 MAX given the years of service on the 737-800's.

That's a reasonable conclusion.  Coupled with Boeing's grounding order, I decided to take a small profit and exit the trade.

4 hours ago, Hootenany said:

I know this is the investing thread so I'll keep this short, but the 90 degree nose down position of the aircraft when it crashed is hard to understand.  A failure of the horizontal stabilizer / trim jack screw would lead to a loss of pitch control, but I guess I would have expected them to be able to pitch the aircraft somewhat even if it's inconsistent.  My guess is that this was either a deliberate act or a total loss of attitude control on the aircraft - perhaps multiple hydraulic system failures.  The point is that there's still a chance this was a mechanical failure (Boeing's fault), but it's very unlikely to be systemic like the 737 MAX given the years of service on the 737-800's.

I wasn't sure what thread to respond it.   I believe we are going to find this is crew-related.  A stuck horizontal stabilizer would result in an inverted parabolic dive, with the aircraft ending upside down.  This looks like it was a deliberate act. 

About a year and a half ago I bought some Zanite Acquisition units (stock + warrants) when issued for $10 per, thinking that Zanite was going to take Transdigm's acquisition approach.  I subsequently sold the warrants at a little over a dollar. Zanite subsequently struck a deal with Embraer of Brasil to get in on a urban air vehicle proposal via a new company formed out of Zanite.  After reading the proxy for the post-merger company, it's easy to see why the principals in Zanite did it - they get millions of penny warrants, but I can't see any near-term payoff for ordinary stockholders. So I sold it for a modest profit of the warrant gain + 28 cents a share.

 

Any forensic accountants want to look at the Def14A and see if I'm wrong? (I love reading dull-as-dirt proxies. 🙂 )

 

https://www.sec.gov/edgar/search/#/dateRange=custom&ciks=0001823652&entityName=Zanite%20Acquisition%20Corp.%20(ZNTE%2C%20ZNTEW%2C%20ZNTEU)%20(CIK%200001823652)&startdt=2021-04-18&enddt=2022-04-18

 

Netflix' double dive since January is the main reason that my entire portfolio will almost certainly underperform the market this year (after multiple years of outsized returns as it rode up to north of $700 in November 2021 and was still well above $500 even after the sell-off through January.  But this one hurt, and all the more because I should have been lightening for the past two years--should have recognized that the landscape was changing even though the pandemic hid it because of the amount of screen time people had time for during long stay-at-home stretches, when there was room for tons of new streaming services without it cannibalizing Netflix' market share.

 

Well, it's happened, and the company is where it is now; I sold about 1/6th or 1/7th of my position after the January dive but need to think about whether it's realistically likely to fall further from here.  I've made it a habit to not sell immediately after crashes like this, when it's hard to distance oneself from the emotions of seeing those enormous red numbers.

 

Still.  the number of paid streaming services at this point is just immense, to the point that I'd almost say unsustainably large.  On the Motley Fool Live cast this morning, which of course focused heavily on Netflix as one of the stocks most widely held by retail investors:

• Netflix is no longer the "Rule Breaker" disrupting the cable industry and Blockbuster.  It has made the new rules of the new market, and now has to deal with competitors wanting to be the next Netflix, not cable companies resisting the change in paradigm (ad-free, on-demand streaming) that Netflix represented.  Therefore, its time as a disruptive hyper-growth stock is probably over.
• Netflix' data-driven model for funding development of proprietary content may be missing systemic effects of individual micro-level decisions.  Specifically, Netflix spreads content production dollars across many series, and then cancels the ones that don't bring the predicted eyeballs to justify further seasons.  However, the aggregate effect of that is that Netflix is starting to develop a reputation as a company that frequently cancels series, meaning that viewers have to guard themselves against getting too invested in any Netflix series and/or recommending them to their friends, because you never know when the axe will fall.  That phenomenon across enough series means that even if all Netflix users have different series they remember that they wished would have continued, almost all Netflix users have at least one story to share about that effect, and that's the story about Netflix that they will tend to remember and share.  This hurts the brand.
• However, Netflix' loss might not be anyone else's gain.  Netflix is still the dominant player in the space that simply isn't big enough for all its current entrants.

So selling now might still be a mistake even if selling in November would have looked brilliant in hindsight.

1 hour ago, Gramarye said:

• Netflix' data-driven model for funding development of proprietary content may be missing systemic effects of individual micro-level decisions.  Specifically, Netflix spreads content production dollars across many series, and then cancels the ones that don't bring the predicted eyeballs to justify further seasons.  However, the aggregate effect of that is that Netflix is starting to develop a reputation as a company that frequently cancels series, meaning that viewers have to guard themselves against getting too invested in any Netflix series and/or recommending them to their friends, because you never know when the axe will fall.  That phenomenon across enough series means that even if all Netflix users have different series they remember that they wished would have continued, almost all Netflix users have at least one story to share about that effect, and that's the story about Netflix that they will tend to remember and share.  This hurts the brand.

 

 

This is why I don't have any streaming services. I have zero trust in them to not yank anything I enjoy.

NASDAQ is now negative YOY.

 

NFLX has been a big part of that but far from the only part.  AMZN just dropped 15% today (and for the record, when NFLX dropped a week or so ago, I didn't buy any more ... when AMZN dropped today, I did).  GOOGL and FB are negative YOY as well.

 

It's been tech stocks generally regardless of exchange.  CRWD and NET are both primarily traded on NYSE and they're down or stagnant YOY as well.

 

Perhaps of more specific relevance to Ohio now, Intel (INTC) slid 6.40% today after announcing earnings of $0.87/share, down from $1.34/share a year earlier but still above analysts' expectations of $0.79 per share, and they reaffirmed their guidance for full-year 2022.  I haven't bought on this dip and I haven't owned Intel for many years now, but I used to and I'm considering it again, not just because of Ohio loyalty and the fact they're investing "bigly" in my home haunts of Licking County, but also just because in an environment of general uncertainty about upside, there seems to be a lot of protection on the downside for Intel.  I mean, unless the "chip shortage" narrative is completely a media fabrication, there is going to be a market for every finished semiconductor product that comes off the line in the new Licking County plant.  Of course that doesn't drop all to shareholders because they need to pay for a $20 billion plant plus the costs of running it, but I have a hard time believing that the market isn't there somehow, and I'm not sure I really need to know the entire product line and how much of it they'll sell and at what margins and to whom in order to have some confidence that they're at least not going to lose on that plant.  Maybe investors are worried about inflation in raw materials costs that Intel won't be able to pass on to its customers?  I'm not sure I'm going to be deterred by that--Intel has to have at least a decent amount of pricing power.

Tech doesn't like that COVID is going away.

9 minutes ago, GCrites80s said:

Tech doesn't like that COVID is going away.

 

At a superficial level, I get that.

 

But push on that just a hair--how much does the tech sector care?

 

Some of the changes wrought by COVID will last long past COVID, including the upward trend (or at least new plateau) of remote work and the need for the various forms of tech (authentication, cloud storage, virtual office environments, etc.) that make it possible.

 

And with some more hardware-oriented tech companies, they're pretty enmeshed in the non-virtual economy, too.  One of the most highly publicized aspects of the chip shortage is the shortage of chips needed for manufacturing cars, not cloud computing and data centers and cryptocurrency-mining graphics board banks.

If we're talking daily or even weekly market following you end up looking at what's going on today or this week and over the past two months individuals have cut back on their tech purchases. That does affect the market even if the long-term outlook is sunny. Thousands of otherwise finished cars are sitting at racetracks waiting on chips and getting through that backlog will take years... even if Intel doesn't supply them themselves other chipmakers are straining to make them. But in the past couple weeks video game sales have taken a total dive, which is representative of how the individual consumer feels about tech this week.

The Fed announced a 50 bps (0.5%) rate hike yesterday and market reaction was mixed until JPow said they weren't anticipating a 0.75% rate hike in June.  Stocks rocketed up to end the day yesterday.

 

Today?  So far, the NASDAQ is down over 5% and the S&P 500 is pushing -4% on the day.

I am normally an optimist even when I shouldn't be. Lately, however, I'm getting pessimistic.  Maybe this means we're nearing a bottom.  🙄

The Market is going to respond badly to any interest rate hike because it is competition. It wants to be the only game in town besides real estate. 

https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/29255-be-fearful-when-others-are-greedy-and-greedy-when-others

 

Easier said than done.

 

The last 6 months have been the worst of my investing career, even worse than the Great Recession (and of course dramatically worse in absolute dollar terms just because I had only just graduated when the Great Recession hit and my investable assets in 2008 were a fraction of my daily moves these days).  Forget multiples of my annual salary; my red ink over the last few months is multiples of the worth of my house.

 

Still, another quote from the same source comes to mind:

 

https://quotefancy.com/quote/931142/Warren-Buffett-You-shouldn-t-own-common-stocks-if-a-50-per-cent-decrease-in-their-value

 

I actually don't think we're near the bottom, because I'm not down 50% yet.  I'm still investing in small amounts every month because I don't know when the bottom will hit and dollar-cost-averaging has been my friend far more than it's been my enemy, but if I were forced to invest all-or-nothing (which fortunately no one is), I'd be waiting because my best guess is that we still have farther to fall.

 

Also, just anecdotally, I'm a member of a couple of message board communities on the Motley Fool that are havens for high-growth, high-risk optimists.  So much so that the rules of the board effectively censor anyone ever making a bear case about the strategy of swinging for the fences with nosebleed-value hypergrowth companies.  I don't post there much because of those censorship rules, since I'm not all-in on the hypergrowth-or-bust strategy by any stretch of the imagination.  But what I can say is that those who are the regulars there are still holding, and the real sign that we've reached the bottom will come when only the most radically committed to that strategy remain, when everyone else has left the "sinking ship."

On 5/10/2022 at 2:34 PM, Gramarye said:

I actually don't think we're near the bottom, because I'm not down 50% yet. 

I'll go out on a limb and predict the low will be 28,000 for the DJI at which point there will be some actual bargains in just about every sector.

I broke my "don't look at my portfolio" rule and my investments are down 26% YTD as we've reached the halfway point of the calendar this year.

 

Total net worth is down around 10% YTD (real estate still appreciating, so there's that...for now).

Preformed Line Products, a nice high-tech manufacturing company in Mayfield, has seen its stock go from $60 to $84 in the last week or so - and up almost 8 today.  Sorry to say, it looks like a takeover.  Probably worth $100/share. 🙄

On 2/14/2022 at 9:41 AM, DarkandStormy said:

 

I wouldn't advise anyone to invest with ARK.  I don't think Cathie has any idea what she's doing.  All of the ARK funds are down 50+% in the last year (S&P 500 is +5-6% in that time).

 

 

 

Cathie Wood's business model is to collect fees on hobby ETFs.  

 

I considered buying $10,000 worth of ARKK when it dropped more than 50% from its recent high to $60 in Feb-March.  Luckily I bought zero, as it's now hovering in the mid-30s.  

 

An ARK competitor ETF called MOON launched during the pandemic around $25/share.  It doubled into the $50s but is now down to $12.   

 

My 401k, which is invested broadly but 100% in stocks, is currently down 23.75% YTD.  

 

 

 

 

Using MACD analysis, every stock I own, with the exception of an emerging market ETF, is headed down.  I don't think I've ever seen that before. Of course, MACD just predicts a trend not a number.  I guess it could be pre-Christmas tax selling.

Most of my funds distribute dividends and capital gains this month. They are being reinvested and buying more shares at a cheaper price. So I don't mind a little downturn now.

Still a couple weeks left in 2022, but...

 

-S&P 500 is -17% YTD

-NASDAQ is -29.5% YTD

 

Brutal.

This morning I shorted some Tesla puts.  The premiums are very high in puts at the moment, meaning a lot of people think TSLA has more to fall.  If it earns $5 a share next year (not unreasonable) $60 a share strike price seems reasonable to me and the $60 put is about $1.    

So the market is finally treating them like a niche manufacturer rather than a tech startup. 

1 minute ago, GCrites80s said:

So the market is finally treating them like a niche manufacturer rather than a tech startup. 

 

Still 50% downside to get to that type of valuation.

On 12/12/2022 at 11:43 AM, DarkandStormy said:

-NASDAQ is -29.5% YTD

 

 

 

 

Remember those QQQ commercials during the Super Bowl?  

 

It has dropped 35%+ from a high of $403 in November 2021.  

 

 

 

 

On 10/20/2022 at 3:55 PM, Lazarus said:

 

 

Cathie Wood's business model is to collect fees on hobby ETFs.  

 

I considered buying $10,000 worth of ARKK when it dropped more than 50% from its recent high to $60 in Feb-March.  Luckily I bought zero, as it's now hovering in the mid-30s.  

 

An ARK competitor ETF called MOON launched during the pandemic around $25/share.  It doubled into the $50s but is now down to $12.   

 

My 401k, which is invested broadly but 100% in stocks, is currently down 23.75% YTD.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

ARKK is now below $30 for the first time since August 2017.

1 hour ago, DarkandStormy said:

 

 

 

ARKK is now below $30 for the first time since August 2017.

 

 

Ouch.  I remember seeing Cramer urge Cathy Wood to close the fund back in 2021.  If she had she would have looked like a genius.  

 

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

Ouch.  I remember seeing Cramer urge Cathy Wood to close the fund back in 2021.  If she had she would have looked like a genius.  

On 12/28/2022 at 1:16 PM, Dougal said:

This morning I shorted some Tesla puts.  The premiums are very high in puts at the moment, meaning a lot of people think TSLA has more to fall.  If it earns $5 a share next year (not unreasonable) $60 a share strike price seems reasonable to me and the $60 put is about $1.    

I'm not normally a day trader; but I achieved 2/3s of my target in 24 hours, so I closed this position.

On 11/5/2021 at 9:47 AM, DarkandStormy said:

 

Probably nothing.

 

The "top" was one month after I posted this, fwiw.

 

(I should have heeded my own warning lol)

On 12/28/2021 at 12:56 PM, DarkandStormy said:

Update:

-2021: +20% (vs S&P 500 +27%)

-2020: +32.5% (vs S&P 500 +18.4%)

-2019: +31.7% (vs S&P 500 +31.49%)

-2018: -2.5% (vs S&P 500 -4.38%)

-2017: +23.8% (vs S&P 500 + 21.83%)

 

-2022: -27.5% (vs S&P 500 -20.62%)

I was kicked off the Mr. Money Mustache forum years ago but still stop by on occasion.  There are some extreme people on that forum, with many people vowing to spend $0 per year on non-essentials.  This is the closest to perfection that I've seen, but they didn't elaborate on what the "hobby" expenses were, so it's possible that they hid some sloppy behavior under that column.  

 

 

 

The forum has many people with similar IRA/401k histories...I believe that this guy has simply been maxing out his tax advantaged accounts since 2015 and hit $1 million by age 30.  I have no idea if he owns a house or invests in real estate.  

 

53 minutes ago, Lazarus said:

The forum has many people with similar IRA/401k histories...I believe that this guy has simply been maxing out his tax advantaged accounts since 2015 and hit $1 million by age 30.  I have no idea if he owns a house or invests in real estate.  

 

Is this a reddit account or a UO?

1 hour ago, Lazarus said:

I was kicked off the Mr. Money Mustache forum years ago but still stop by on occasion.  There are some extreme people on that forum, with many people vowing to spend $0 per year on non-essentials.  This is the closest to perfection that I've seen, but they didn't elaborate on what the "hobby" expenses were, so it's possible that they hid some sloppy behavior under that column.  

 

 

 

I like Mr. Money Mustache and I agree that a lot of things on there are extreme. But I like the philosophy and i picked up a lot of anti-consumerist habits from there. However, I do like to spend money on coffeeshops/ restaurants/ vacations, etc. I just budget for those things and max out as many tax-advantaged accounts as I can.

 

I like spending money on experiences rather than things. 

3 minutes ago, freefourur said:

 

I like spending money on experiences rather than things. 

Spend money on lots of things, and then rent a storage unit to hold all those things. Pay on that unit for 10 years while all those things collect dust. 

Just now, Brutus_buckeye said:

Spend money on lots of things, and then rent a storage unit to hold all those things. Pay on that unit for 10 years while all those things collect dust. 

and buy a big truck to haul those things around.

^ Not all in jest, I am semi serious about that post :) 

21 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Is this a reddit account or a UO?

 

It uses the exact same forum software and color scheme as UO.  

5 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Spend money on lots of things, and then rent a storage unit to hold all those things. Pay on that unit for 10 years while all those things collect dust. 

 

Per this story, 1 in 11 Americans pays an average of $91/mo to rent a self-storage unit:

https://archive.curbed.com/2018/3/27/17168088/cheap-storage-warehouse-self-storage-real-estate

 

 

 

 

 

 

6 hours ago, Lazarus said:

 

Per this story, 1 in 11 Americans pays an average of $91/mo to rent a self-storage unit:

https://archive.curbed.com/2018/3/27/17168088/cheap-storage-warehouse-self-storage-real-estate

 

 

 

 

 

 

it is amusing how many people will rent a storage unit to store their furniture or belongings while they spend a year or two away and then when they come back to town, they still keep the storage unit full of their crap because the old furniture that they were storing does not fit the style of their new house. Even after realizing this, they still pay on the unit for years in some cases before they actually get rid of the belongings.