Discussion ***Official*** 2024 Stock Market Thread 💰

[jpiniero]

^^^^

That stuff is hilarious honestly. Who needs a casino?

 

[dullard]

Well, this was just unfortunate. My worst performing fund dropped 11% today.

I had the same thing happen, then the money was back on Friday. Dividend paid out in my case, but took a few days to credit. It was a Vanguard fund, which shows up to a 4 day gap: https://www.vanguard.com/pdf/PIDIVDAT_2024.pdf

 

[dullard]

By investing for borrowed money (gearing) or shorting the wrong stocks.

Investing with borrowed money (buying on margin) is the classic example. It was a big contributor to the great depression.

Suppose you have $5k. You can't make much money with just $5k. If the market goes up 10% you make a measly $500 minus taxes. But, what if you could invest more, then you could make much more money if the stock goes up. If only you had $50k, then that same 10% move would net you $5k minus taxes. That is enough to actually make a difference in someone's life. But you just don't have $50k.

So you use your $5k as collateral to borrow $50k. There is just one tiny caveat that you must pay it back immediately if your balance goes down too far. Pick the wrong stock, say you lose $10k in the example Indus gave above. Then you get a margin call demanding their money back. You not only lost $10k on the stock, but you have to sell it at a low point which could theoretically make it go even lower. Then with whatever scraps you have left (under $40,000) you have to pay off the $50k loan (plus interest on your loan) nearly immediately. You just turned $5k into a $10k loss. After the great depression there are laws limiting how much you can borrow, but you can still borrow and lose a lot.

Shorting is the exact same as the example above, but instead of borrowing cash you borrow stocks.

The "fun" part comes with triple shorts. I dabbled in them a bit 15 years ago. Stock goes down 10% and you get 30% return. I made quite a good profit triple shorting silver down from over $40/ounce down to $20/ounce. Took a few thousand dollars and multiplied it by 10X. But, you can lose your shirt that way too and fast. I lost 1/3rd of those gains by getting out on a Jan 2nd instead of a Dec 31st. I don't touch them any more or any shorts of any kind.

 

[IronWing]

I had the same thing happen, then the money was back on Friday. Dividend paid out in my case, but took a few days to credit. In this case it was a Vanguard fund, which shows up to a 4 day gap: https://www.vanguard.com/pdf/PIDIVDAT_2024.pdf

Yep, dividend showed up yesterday, dated to the 18th. That's a handy chart.

 

[Charmonium]

You can also borrow money in a foreign currency (the Yen is very popular for this sort of thing, or at least was) and convert that to USD to invest. This is great when interest rates for that currency are low if not negative. It's also good if the value of the currency is in decline.

This something that only larger investors can afford to do. But beware regardless. If interest rates for the borrowed currency start to increase or the value of the currency increases, you can wake up one day to find the family jewels in an unforgiving vice.

Interest rates and currency value tend to have a positive correlation. Higher rates tend to make a currency more valuable.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Palantir up nicely after solid earnings and guidance!

View attachment 93306

Palantir had wonderful year, wish I bought it.

 

[FelixDeCat]

PTON not doing so well. Now there are talks of potential bankruptcy.

You would have thought they would be bankrupt by now. I still think they bite the dust.

 

[FelixDeCat]

LOL - as head into the market close...

View attachment 104538

Dear Santa,




Your's truly,

FelixDeKat

 

[biostud]

Dear Santa,


View attachment 113628

Your's truly,

FelixDeKat

Pfff, remember start of August, and where are we now?

 

[Indus]

Dear Santa,


View attachment 113628

Your's truly,

FelixDeKat

I wouldn't mind 3000/ 20,000, 1000 again!

 

[Indus]

I looked at what you said and found an interesting vid here..

 

[FelixDeCat]

I looked at what you said and found an interesting vid here..

Options are fun...when you win...but again the zero dated kind offer NO mercy.

Lives: Zero
Respawn: No

Insert coin

 

[Indus]

So say a stock is 125 dollars today but I want to buy it when it drops to 110 automatically..

That is not an OPTION??

What is that called when you set your app to do that..

 

[IronWing]

So say a stock is 125 dollars today but I want to buy it when it drops to 110 automatically..

That is not an OPTION??

What is that called when you set your app to do that..

That's just a buy order. Nothing happens and no money is at risk until the price hits your target.

 

[Indus]

That's just a buy order. Nothing happens and no money is at risk until the price hits your target.

Ahhh thank you!

 

[Red Squirrel]

Was looking at my Questrade account, I'm at 1.6k now in terms of index funds. Return is 14%. I suck at picking stocks, so think I will stick with this. Much better return.

Probably going to dump that on the credit line once I get to a point where I have enough to pay it off. In the mean time though may as well just let it accumulate. I stopped contributing to my company ESP, in the past that was always my best investment, but in the past year or so it has not been doing as well, and I can really use the cash to pay regular COL as that keeps going up. When the ESP gets better I will cash that out.

 

[Indus]

That's just a buy order. Nothing happens and no money is at risk until the price hits your target.

And similarly I'm assuming you can do sell orders.. like automatically sell when price reaches $1000/ share or something..

 

[Charmonium]

And similarly I'm assuming you can do sell orders.. like automatically sell when price reaches $1000/ share or something..

They're called limit orders (whether buy or sell). That's as opposed to a market order where you buy at the current market price.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Laes took a big shit on me 😞

A second public offering in two weeks. Greedy bastards.dilution.

Edit ..Bought at 2.71, sold premarket just now 3.01. The offering price is 1.90, and they have another 65 million to raise on their shelf filing.

Bought LAES back at 3.95 today. After hours $5.85 on more quantum nonsense.

Edit sold 6.4 premarket just now, way too much fluff and profit to let slip away

 

[FelixDeCat]

Picked up 1 Jan 25 84 PLTR call option 6.35

Sold 83 call against it 6.80

 

[Indus]

S&P back at 6000 today..

Apparently the animal spirits won't let this bubble pop!

 

[dasherHampton]

So say a stock is 125 dollars today but I want to buy it when it drops to 110 automatically..

That is not an OPTION??

What is that called when you set your app to do that..

Unfortunately it's quite easy to lose money quickly selling options. You can buy the options you sell back to minimize how much you lose but it sucks.

Options trade in lots of 100. If you sell a put option on a $125 stock you're basically putting up $12,500. If the option expires quickly, like the next Friday, you won't get much of anything unless the stock is in a free fall. Even then it's not likely the put will be worth much.

But say you sell a put option on that $125 stock at $110 that expires a month out. There are an infinite number of factors that determine what you will get for selling the put but let's assume for simplicities sake you get $500. It's easy to think "that's a pretty good annual return on a potential $11,000 investment". Cha ching - $500 immediately deposited your account.

Fast forward two weeks - the stock takes a dump and now sits at $115. The value of that option that is two weeks from expiration is now up to $1000. You're stuck - Do you take a $500 loss and get out or hold on and hope? You hold on and hope.

A week later that stock tanks again down to $105. That same option is now worth $2000. What now? You're out $1500 if you buy it back at that point.

Trading options essentially means fighting against the quant departments of all of the major firms (and inside information) . It's not for the faint of heart but you can make decent money if you're careful.

A while back I sold 5 $110 puts on NVDA that expire 4/17 iirc. They netted me around $3700. I'm putting up $55,000 to make $3700 fairly safely (I hope) over about 6 or 7 months. I don't believe NVDA is going anywhere anytime soon.

But always remember Stamps.com. That stock was coincidently also sitting at around $125 years ago. I believe they lost their contract with the US postal service and that stock tanked ONE HUNDRED dollars a share aftermarket.

Since options only trade when the market is open anyone who sold put options on that stock lost their f#@king shirt. Conversely - people who owned that stock and bought puts as insurance saved their asses.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Unfortunately it's quite easy to lose money quickly selling options. You can buy the options you sell back to minimize how much you lose but it sucks.

Options trade in lots of 100. If you sell a put option on a $125 stock you're basically putting up $12,500. If the option expires quickly, like the next Friday, you won't get much of anything unless the stock is in a free fall. Even then it's not likely the put will be worth much.

But say you sell a put option on that $125 stock at $110 that expires a month out. There are an infinite number of factors that determine what you will get for selling the put but let's assume for simplicities sake you get $500. It's easy to think "that's a pretty good annual return on a potential $11,000 investment". Cha ching - $500 immediately deposited your account.

Fast forward two weeks - the stock takes a dump and now sits at $115. The value of that option that is two weeks from expiration is now up to $1000. You're stuck - Do you take a $500 loss and get out or hold on and hope? You hold on and hope.

A week later that stock tanks again down to $105. That same option is now worth $2000. What now? You're out $1500 if you buy it back at that point.

Trading options essentially means fighting against the quant departments of all of the major firms (and inside information) . It's not for the faint of heart but you can make decent money if you're careful.

A while back I sold 5 $110 puts on NVDA that expire 4/17 iirc. They netted me around $3700. I'm putting up $55,000 to make $3700 fairly safely (I hope) over about 6 or 7 months. I don't believe NVDA is going anywhere anytime soon.

But always remember Stamps.com. That stock was coincidently also sitting at around $125 years ago. I believe they lost their contract with the US postal service and that stock tanked ONE HUNDRED dollars a share aftermarket.

Since options only trade when the market is open anyone who sold put options on that stock lost their f#@king shirt. Conversely - people who owned that stock and bought puts as insurance saved their asses.

Preach it!

Sometimes people buy lower level strikes to redistribute risk (re-insurance) to protect against a catastrophic black swan event like your Stamps.com example. You sell the $125 strike to collect the premium and buy the $90 strike for the same expiration date. That will eat in to your profits, but it insures you dont wind up with an account destroying loss.

 

[Charmonium]

I've never really seen the point of spending money on options. But then my stock buying days are in the distant past. I did buy a datacenter etf and Barrick back in March. I wouldn't buy puts or calls on them though. If they don't move or move down over the course of the year, I'd either sell or see if my predictions of the future are contradicted by the data. I had 2 other stocks I've already sold. Probably should have hung on to pfizer tough.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Crazy market today. Small cap madness.