Damn, why didn't we think about this?
Some people made and lost fortunes today. Hard to believe someone could influence stocks that much with small time investors.
It is hard to believe that, I agree. They said the forum has 3.5 million members...I don't know how many of them are participating. And one person could buy several dozen to several hundred shares..and who knows whom else is lurking in the background doing the same. I thought it was crazy on Tuesday and then I turned the news on this afternoon and saw what it did today! Yesterday, after a spike, it actually traded negative for a while and then today, up like a rocketship!
Hedge fund types getting angry. Oh...they don't like it when they get squeezed and lose but it's all fine and good when they are the ones making windfalls at other people's expense. Oh, ok! It goes both ways!
nice write up from one of the plebes in the trenches
https://newrepublic.com/article/161182/bought-tens-thousands-dollars-gamestop-stock-no-regrets
I'll admit that I have no idea how all that Wall Street stuff works. I've got a guy who does that stuff for me! 😉
This past week's SNL touched on the Game Stop story ("What Still Works?"). In the spoof, they pointed out that Game Stop's business is actually very light, as most people "game" for free on the internet. The sudden rise in their "value" was (seemingly) artificially induced by players who knew how to make this happen (I couldn't be more vague if I tried!).
So, they managed to rase the cost of their shares - but who's going to purchase these shares at the new, inflated price? I've got an old quarter purported to be worth thousands of dollars ... but NOBODY will pay me anywhere near that much for it!
@rusty I saw that SNL, the pillow guy later on had me cracking up.
I didn't understand it until last week either. Hedge funds were "shorting" vulnerable stocks like GameStop and AMC Theatres, by borrowing it and driving the stock price down. The catch being they themselves have to buy it back at the lower price. So a bunch of independent investors organized on a Reddit thread rallied to buy the stock which instead inflated the price. So these hedge funds would be stuck having to buy it back at 138%.
As they lost billions of dollars, Hedge funds whined that it was market manipulation. Meanwhile trading apps gave them an assist by freezing purchase of GameStop stocks for a day while hedge funds could continue to trade freely.
Basically hedge funds were manipulating the market to begin with and tanking vulnerable companies, and didn't like when day traders organized to play against them at their own game. It exposed the "free market" as a big game where regulation and rules only apply to the plebes, and trading apps having a huge conflict of interest.
Not related to Game Stop or AMC or whatever else was on the short/Wall St bets, but does anyone buy and sell stocks in an IRA, 401 or outright?
I have some cash at a broker after last year I wanted to put into the market, but hate buying into this market. I try to be pretty picking what I buy related to my Made in USA sentiment so I usually focus more on service companies and I really like REITs.
One company I was eyeing was Desktop Metal (DM). It is a 3D printing type company who engineers, R&Ds and markets machines. They subcontract our the manufacturing to Jabil. Jabil makes all kinds of things like this in like 30 countries and employs 230,000 people so who knows, I doubt the DM machines are USA (Jabil does have manufacturing plants in MI and MN) - I forget the name but I think the last 3D printing machines were made in Brooklyn, but then that company sold and they offshored the production. I've inquired where the DM machines are made buy have yet to hear back.
Anyway, if viewing DM as more of an engineering and R&D company I was interested. Basically the guy who invented 3D printing from MIT is a co-founder. They just went public in December and might be one to watch as that market should see enormous growth all depending what their competitors do.
As for REITs - cell tower REITs seem to be hot right now with the 5G roll out. Cell companies don't own the towers, somebody builds and owns the towers and then leases space on the tower to cell companies. Companies like American Tower or Crown Castle. Just seems like I've missed the boat on these at current levels.
Warehouse and distribution REITs have been strong as has life science and medical REITs. I own some of those. Last year I bought some Data Storage REITs and looking at some kind of public self storage REITs too.
People have been buying infrastructure and construction stocks for a few years now in anticipation of something despite nothing coming to fruition yet.
Just hate buying into this market. I bought some Waste Management at I think exactly the market low 3/23/2020. Feels good when you make some right calls like that and time it right.
Everyone should've just bought Tesla last March and forget about everything else. I don't own any Tesla.
Pretty sure my portfolio has no individual stocks. We work with a financial adviser. Our guy did see what was happening with the pandemic, and moved us to things like the 5G towers and especially technology - with Zoom meetings taking over, the cloud servers and tech companies have been doing very well. He also moved more to healthcare. He thinks the stock market is overpriced, but still thinks it will do well - especially with bonds paying nothing. My wife has been putting money into her Roth, and he is putting some of that into emerging markets. Since cd's and money markets are paying nothing, we opened a savings account with Discover, which was paying .6% but is now at .5% - still losing to inflation, but a better place than most right now for keeping cash on hand.
Sang, your advisor actively manages your account for which you pay a small annual fee I presume? I just have a broker that makes commissions on trades I instruct, but they are helpful with suggestions and providing information and recommendations based of my input but that is the extend of their involvement.
I would think your account is comprised of stocks or maybe your advisor uses ETFs for the trades?
There definitely could be some advantages to paying a professional to buy and sell within the account, I am not going to suggest otherwise; unless the account is comprised of mutual funds as I figure the mutual funds all have their own managers and team of analysts paid by the fund's expense ratio and any 12b1 fees to buy and sell within the specific funds they manage and therefor paying a financial advisor to further manage the account would seem like it could be duplication of fees. Atleast that has been my outlook. I'd let the mutual fund managers do their job and just buy and hold those - if buying individual stocks or ETFs then active management would have a benefit.
I bought some of the aforementioned stocks today...Desktop Metal up 2.5% woo-hoo, STAG Industrial REIT up .9%, Crown Castle and AMT Cell Tower REITs up .8 and .25%...but Public Storage down 1%
Yes, we pay a small percentage on the portfolio - the better we do, the better he does. It is all mutual funds and ETF's. Most brokerages now (I think he uses the TD Ameritrade platform now, which was bought by Schwab) don't charge for trades anymore. We originally had our IRA's at Schwab, and they will eventually be back on their platform - but he will be our advisor instead of them.
He tracks the managed fund fees, and moves us if they get too high - especially if the fund manager doesn't add a lot of value.
That's how Trump's tax reform screwed us - you could deduct brokerage fees as long as you paid them outside of your IRA's. Now you can't.
nice write up from one of the plebes in the trenches
https://newrepublic.com/article/161182/bought-tens-thousands-dollars-gamestop-stock-no-regrets
That was good. I have actually grown very very tired of the story, but reading that brought back some of the fun.
If you’ve got about 45 minutes of free time, check this out.
From yesterday’s episode one of ”On Point.” A good discussion about the game stock issue in laymen’s terms:
https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2021/02/02/what-the-gamestop-saga-reflects-about-wall-street
If Tesla sold the bitcoin they bought last month they would stand to make more profit selling bitcoin than they did on all their EV car sales in 2020!
Anyone own bitcoin?
Way too volatile for me.....And I have issues with the obscene amount of energy used by the computer servers in the so called “mining” process behind bitcoin....But that’s just me and your mileage may vary... 
No, I don't have any bitcoin. No doubt a bunch of people have made serious money on that train. I had a radio show on one time where they were talking about the "mining" sounded really interesting but I was too distracted to listen closely.
Late 2015/early 2016 I did buy some GLD and SLV at their respective dips at the time. This past year I watched the GLD price and finally put a sell order in for a chunk. Put a second sell order in $10 higher a week or two later. Put a third sell order in, but it peaked before it got there. Put a sell order on SLV when the reddit traders wanted to run it up, I put it over $30 and it never got there and consensus says that silver can't be played like they did the other stocks. Hopefully GLD and SLV resume their climbs as I look to sell both again. Then hopefully it dips/crashes again and I will buy again and repeat.
I did buy some Palantir. Not really into the reddit love on that one, I just straight up like Alex Karp. First time I heard him talk at Davos 2020 I was like "this is a guy I want to invest in". So that one has been a roller coaster too, I just bought below $30. I will look to hold that long term no matter what...or buy more at the dip. Now...if they can only turn a profit, might be coming.
I'm no ESG or socially responsible investing type. Alcohol, gambling, fossil fuels, guns, tobacco - I'd buy any of it. Not saying I do or have, but I'm not opposed to any of it. Palantir tends to be controversial, I like and agree with Karp's outlook on things.
All these niche investing vehicles now you'd think they would have a patriotic type investment to get into...guess they have that already, they're called T-Bills.
