Investing, Stock Market and Retirement Planning Thread

[mikey]

Erased a brutal week last week in about two hours today. Better than 400% return. SPY is almost certainly gonna hit 310 tomorrow. If the bears can break that line, 303 or even 296 is possible...let's go!

[NTP66]

Anyone buying stock in any of these pharma companies? I’m superstitious as **** and have avoided buying Moderna, etc.

[mikey]

I do, but just take the pump and then dump. They seem to consistently be fool's gold as far as investing goes...I don't hold them for more than 24 hours usually...unless it's like a nonsense penny stock that for some reason has a modicum of potential to be acquired...

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

My company, ticker: NCNO, had one of the best IPOs of a US tech company in the last 20 or so years and got up to $91 yesterday

I decided to not sell the shares I was able to sell hoping it’d keep going up. It dropped to $72 today. ****, that’s a couple grand I missed out on by playing the waiting game

[offsides]

Anyone buying stock in any of these pharma companies? I’m superstitious as **** and have avoided buying Moderna, etc.

Bought some early Monday. Haven't sold it yet, but am ready and watching it closely.
Also have had some Lilly for a few months with decent results.

[mikey]

Bought the dip on SQ today. I have a couple calls on it. If you don't mind getting theta-dicked a bit but want basically a guaranteed* 300%+ return over the next 18-24 months, just load up on some of the 185c, 190c, or 195c SQ calls for either early or mid 2022...the stock should be over 300 by then...

You likely won't even have to wait to see them out...meaning you can probably dump them some time in 2021 and get that return or better.

[mikey]

My company, ticker: NCNO, had one of the best IPOs of a US tech company in the last 20 or so years and got up to $91 yesterday

I decided to not sell the shares I was able to sell hoping it’d keep going up. It dropped to $72 today. ****, that’s a couple grand I missed out on by playing the waiting game

One of my friends that I invest with did something similar with AMD last week. Bought about 2k in contracts earlier in the week. Had a chance to dump them for 23k on Thursday. Thought it was going to break through 60 on Friday. Instead, he got his poophole decimated by it being completely stagnant on Friday and only ended up with about 4 or 5k. What a loser!

We all encouraged him to bail out. Even if he sold half of his positions then, he still walks with a five digit number...that's foldin' money where I come from...

[count2infinity]

Interesting read... this image pretty much tells the story:

Brilliant scientists have been known to do foolish things, but Isaac Newton’s financially disastrous moves during the South Sea Bubble of 1720 are a particularly remarkable blunder. When it was founded in 1711, the South Sea Company was primarily a scheme for managing British government debt. Newton was an early investor and profited nicely as the price of South Sea stock rose over the course of the 1710s. However, in 1720 the company’s stock experienced one of the most legendary rises and falls in financial history. Newton decided in the early stages of that mania that it was going to end badly and liquidated his stake at a large profit. But the bubble kept inflating, and Newton jumped back in almost at the peak. His experience provides an instructive example of how even brilliant thinkers can go astray in an environment that lends itself to collective delusions as a result of the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation.

Edit: guess it would help to share the link... not that anyone cares. https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/ ... /PT.3.4521

[shafnutz05]

I do, but just take the pump and then dump. They seem to consistently be fool's gold as far as investing goes...I don't hold them for more than 24 hours usually...unless it's like a nonsense penny stock that for some reason has a modicum of potential to be acquired...

Do you go on r/wallstreetbets?

Every now and then I stumble in there, and I might as well be reading a foreign language.

[mikey]

Yeah, I only go there for the memes though. Best memes in town.

[offsides]

Anyone buying stock in any of these pharma companies? I’m superstitious as **** and have avoided buying Moderna, etc.

Bought some early Monday. Haven't sold it yet, but am ready and watching it closely.
Also have had some Lilly for a few months with decent results.

Moderna finishes up again. Been good for me so far. We'll see how long it lasts.

[Shyster]

My 401k offers a variety of investment options in terms of large-cap mutual funds, small cap, international, etc. I have my contributions allocated to go 50% in large-cap mutual funds, 35% in small- and mid-cap funds, and the remaining 15% in international funds. My question is the number of mutual funds in each category. For example, for the 50% in large-cap funds, I could do 10% into five funds, 25% into two funds, or all 50% into one fund. I assume the more funds one invests in, the more lost to fees and expenses. Is there any sort of rule of thumb for how many different mutual funds one should invest in?

[Beveridge]

I do 25% across 4 mutual funds. I think doing 4 or 5 is probably enough to diversify while also not spreading it out all over the place.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

My 401k offers a variety of investment options in terms of large-cap mutual funds, small cap, international, etc. I have my contributions allocated to go 50% in large-cap mutual funds, 35% in small- and mid-cap funds, and the remaining 15% in international funds. My question is the number of mutual funds in each category. For example, for the 50% in large-cap funds, I could do 10% into five funds, 25% into two funds, or all 50% into one fund. I assume the more funds one invests in, the more lost to fees and expenses. Is there any sort of rule of thumb for how many different mutual funds one should invest in?

Couple things:

A lot of funds (like vanguard) will cut fees once you reach a certain number of dollars in the fund. So if you are interested in minimizing fees, that would be a good thing to research

Large cap funds tend to all invest in the same pool of stocks. You may think you are diversifying your investments by splitting them into five different funds, but there is a good chance they are all just vehicles to invest in the same handful of stocks (Facebook amazon Apple Netflix google Tesla etc) at slightly different amounts, then you really aren’t diversifying anything. So I’d suggest looking through each fund’s list of holdings by sector and by individual stock and see if there is any real difference.

Edit: when i was in the shower, i had a revelation: what I’m trying to say here is that large cap mutual funds are a lot like eating at Taco Bell. Sure, the menu is big and it may seem like a lot of options, but really its just a the same stuff with some slight (and sometimes important) differences

[Beveridge]

I guess I should have added that my 25% split is large, mid, small and international to avoid what the kangaroo mentions.

[mikey]

KtK with the POTW...

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

This is the way.

[NTP66]

Hmm...

[NTP66]

@DigitalGypsy66: It's that time again. Marcus down to 0.80% APY.

[MrKennethTKangaroo]

Rant on:

Just read in yesterday's WSJ that both credit card delinquencies and CC balances are down from the start of the pandemic. just so we are keeping score:

The market hasn't budged much
Homebuying is at a frenzy (also in the wsj: DR Horton (the country's largest homebuilder), sold 38% more homes in the second quarter of 2020 than 2019) (also people are paying cash for houses in allison park per dodint)
People aren't relying on credit cards
According to the loney in another thread, discretionary income was up


All in the midst of historic unemployment and decline in GDP paired with no clear view of a light at the end of the tunnel. Plus there have been so many bankruptcies in oil and gas plus retail that it really doesnst make news when brooks brothers or lord and taylor file for it.

Whatever the government and the fed is doing, i hope they have a firm grasp of the consequences because this sht is effed up

[DigitalGypsy66]

@DigitalGypsy66: It's that time again. Marcus down to 0.80% APY.

I got the email just now.

[NTP66]

I haven't received the e-mail yet, just logged on and saw. **** like this makes me glad that I have a lot of my cash in a CD ladder. That last 2.75% APY CD I reluctantly opened looks pretty damn good right now.

[mac5155]

Rant on:

Just read in yesterday's WSJ that both credit card delinquencies and CC balances are down from the start of the pandemic. just so we are keeping score:

The market hasn't budged much
Homebuying is at a frenzy (also in the wsj: DR Horton (the country's largest homebuilder), sold 38% more homes in the second quarter of 2020 than 2019) (also people are paying cash for houses in allison park per dodint)
People aren't relying on credit cards
According to the loney in another thread, discretionary income was up


All in the midst of historic unemployment and decline in GDP paired with no clear view of a light at the end of the tunnel. Plus there have been so many bankruptcies in oil and gas plus retail that it really doesnst make news when brooks brothers or lord and taylor file for it.

Whatever the government and the fed is doing, i hope they have a firm grasp of the consequences because this sht is effed up

I know i am not the norm here but rather the exception. I have paid off over $7,000 in CC debt since March. Last year was rough and we had to rely on them more than I wanted to. Between the stimulus, student loan deferrals (funneling some - not all - of that money to my high interest CCs), and just in general saving like $500 a month in commuting costs, it's been pretty nice to get rid of that debt a lot more quickly than I expected to.

[NTP66]

Good on you for getting your CC debt down. I know others who haven't taken this opportunity to do that for various dumb reasons.

[mac5155]

Plus i've made like $1600 opening bank accounts but what do I know.