patrick.net

ForcedTQ says

So Musk took capital which he needs to run/expand his business and purchased a digital currency with it? Well, when he needs to use it he will have to sell, may be for a gain, might be for a loss, but that should send a signal to buyers of his debt that he doesn’t really need as much money for actual capital expenses as he says he does....

there is a reason why he's the richest man. Tesla is swimming in cash. Look at the marketcap/stock price. Tesla is 10 years ahead of the competition. This wasnt by chance but by smart decisions. Holding Bitcoin on their balance sheet as diversification is part of it. A big F U to the Bitcoin doubters. I cant take all this winning :)

G36 says

there is a reason why he's the richest man.

The government tit.

So I'm already 4X in $TSLA. Should I sell now, lock in profits, and wait for a future buying opportunity?

rocketjoe79 says

So I'm already 4X in $TSLA. Should I sell now, lock in profits, and wait for a future buying opportunity?

One wise man once said: "If you don't know what to do right now - do nothing".

Eric Holder says

rocketjoe79 says

So I'm already 4X in $TSLA. Should I sell now, lock in profits, and wait for a future buying opportunity?

One wise man once said: "If you don't know what to do right now - do nothing".

Now, that Tesla bought Bitcoin, TSLA will continue to skyrocket.

Apple following soon?

"Apple positioned to offer cryptocurrencies: RBC report"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-crypto-currency-apple-idUSKBN2A82I4

https://fortune.com/2021/02/08/tesla-bought-bitcoin-will-apple-be-next/

"The possibility has more than the usual Bitcoin bulls roused. Analysts at RBC Capital Markets, a Canadian investment bank, see the potential for Apple to add Bitcoin to its balance sheet as part of a broader strategy they believe could turbocharge the iPhone maker’s already fast-growing payments business."

just_passing_through says

New company I hired onto is allowing the Mega Backdoor Roth. I'm going to be able to stuff up to (I think) 58K into retirement accounts this year. I may be off by $500 or something.

I seem to recall that if your income (AGI or MAGI) was too high, you couldnt contribute to a roth. I think the phaseout started around ~120k and by ~130k MAGI, you couldn't contribute at all.

I know if you contribute pretax income to a 401k (about 19k per yr max is allowed), that reduces your MAGI, which helps keep you under the roth limit. But a software engineer making 150k would probably still be over the limit to contribute to a roth unless they have other MAGI adjustments, which I think are very uncommon.

Does mega backdoor roth bypass these income limits?

I knew this stuff once, but that was 5+yrs ago, and now I forgot lol.

RINs suggested altria MO group is doing well.

Thanks for that idea.

Atnt has little going for it though, their plans r 2 to 3x t mobile plan.

Not sure if they have other items to justify current price. Divident is great though

mell says

Corrections have been short lived though I expect a bigger correction soon, no crash. Inventory outside of SF remains relatively low, so they don't see the downward pressure SF is seeing. Rent vs buy still favors rent.

An acquaintance just had Foster/Redwood City tenants break (a somewhat recent) lease and decamp the Bay Area. Well, supposedly they'll continue paying until he finds another tenant. Will keep an eye on that situation.

Hircus says

Does mega backdoor roth bypass these income limits?

I knew this stuff once, but that was 5+yrs ago, and now I forgot lol.

I don't think so. This is what I received at work:

After-Tax contributions are beneficial to employees who are already contributing the IRS 402(g) limit of $19,500 (or $26,000 for those 50 or older). After-Tax 401(k) contributions allow you to make additional tax deferred contributions up to the Total Contribution Limit, 415(c), of $58,000 for 2021 ($64,500 for those 50 or over). Once you max out your traditional or Roth 401(k) contributions, you are still able to contribute up to $38,500 in After-Tax money.

Once contributed, After-Tax contributions can be converted to Roth contributions with all their tax benefits. Setting up an automated conversion of your after-tax 401(k) contributions to Roth 401(k) contributions immediately after contributions are made each pay period with Fidelity can result in your earnings growing and being distributed tax-free if certain requirements are met. Please read Q6 of the After-Tax FAQ document for converting after-tax money to Roth.

The trick is to make that call to Fidelity the first pay period and set it on auto. That way it's continuously being transferred to my Roth at TD Ameritrade each paycheck.

As far as I'm aware you can convert as much as you want through the back door. Say, for instance you switched jobs and had 1-million-dollars in a 401K. You could roll that over into your Roth you'd just have to pay taxes on it. But that's after you leave. These new offerings are great to stuff things in a hypothetical tax shelter. I say hypothetical because who the fuck knows with our fraud govt.

I'm a scientist/engineer though and not any sort of person you should take investment advice from.

KgK one says

RINs suggested altria MO group is doing well.

Yeah, I read despite their debt it's manageable because they only have to roll over 1.5 billion each year and not all of it. Apparently it is likely a non-issue as they grow into new products and out of cigs. Although they still sell a lot of cigs.

ATT I have no idea. I remember reading they may be the poster child for a company with bad debt taught in schools in the future. But what do I know...

For the most part, if one simply wants a safe vehicle, build something that looks like State St's dividend ETF, SPYD, for yourself. This is the S&P div tracker which separates out the Googles, Amazons, and Teslas which have obscured the S&P500 into a growth biased index rather than an income one.

And the whole idea behind keeping some in MO & T (and I've dumped all of NLY as I'm not into the leveraged mortgage REIT) is that we're near or at a market top. Since these stocks have basically been beaten down already, they really can't go down much further which is great because if the market goes down, then you'll get even more shares per quarter than earlier during the bear channel.

But yeah, they're not a long term buy/hold like a Coca-Cola, J&J, or P&G which you really never need to sell.

Altria has been just solid for me for 13 years straight now. It got beaten down when people were croaking from illegal vape shit but they regularly beat earnings and payout. Decent growth in that time as well.

theoakman says

Altria has been just solid for me for 13 years straight now. It got beaten down when people were croaking from illegal vape shit but they regularly beat earnings and payout. Decent growth in that time as well.

Likewise, I held RJ Reynolds for a long time and that got me some 15:1 with the DRIPs.

zzyzzx says

How will these do in a high inflation environment?

If stagflation returns, then you'll have to move into energy stocks which can pay its divs, given higher costs of fuel and its production/distribution which will be passed onto the consumer.

I think that eventually, Biden/Harris will simply disappear when ppl realize that a 'green economy' is BS, just like the hydrogen one where all vehicles have Ballard fuel cells.

hey y'all
what happened with the stock market correction? Seeing an all time high on my stock portfolio....where are the market timers here? Or did they mean next year?

G36 says

hey y'all
what happened with the stock market correction? Seeing an all time high on my stock portfolio....where are the market timers here? Or did they mean next year?

Tech looking tired, job numbers sucked, but you have inflationary forces working against any pull-down. We had a brief jitter but probably didn't qualify for a correction, it's more volatile though so keeping some cash to daytrade the swings works well. I'd still be careful here, it's still early into 2021.

Fed will be buying stock market direct lol instead of just bond buys... Stimulus check in the pot no way the market dumps,
not that a vulture black swan isn't flying over it just hasn't found the spot to land yet but be on the look out when DX hits the 88+/- area things could
change very quick.

Cash says

Fed will be buying stock market direct lol instead of just bond buys... Stimulus check in the pot no way the market dumps,
not that a vulture black swan isn't flying over it just hasn't found the spot to land yet but be on the look out when DX hits the 88+/- area things could
change very quick.

One thing you notice more now are larger profit taking dumps whenever the market has pulled ahead for the day for a while, we don't have the eternal ascending boring market anymore. Roughly 20% in cash now, but still plenty left to swing or invest into select biotechs.

stimulus (=money printing) and super low rates. Productivity at our company is through the roof with the majority of people working remotely.
I imagine its similar at other tech companies too. The ones that were already not making it got hit the hardest (service/retail).
No way we see a noticeable correction in the stock market. Especially, because we have soo many people calling for a crash.
I would actually favor some higher rates.....housing is running a bit too hot.

As expected the correction is here, TSLA being taken to the woodshed, as mentioned earlier you won't see 900 again for a long time if at all. Those lofty valuations will come to an end. All of tech battered, taking gains was prudent as well as having at least 10%, better 20%+ cash reserves. People realized xi-den doesn't do shit unless told to sign papers by his puppet masters, and cummala well you know how she goes. Welcome to volatility. Don't think we will see a full on crash, but def a significant correction before volatility subsides.

I've been reading (and seeing) myself the flow of money back out of tech, and into commodities. Stocks associated with oil, copper, metals and materials of actual value are trending back up, as they've been seriously suppressed the last year and a half. The large majority of my stock portfolio is now in oil and ammo stocks. Ammo I think will be short lived, while oil stocks will skyrocket over the next 1-2 years.

that WAS a nice buying opportunity for TSLA

TSLA is vastly overvalued here - 900 was a gift to sell to all those riding it. If the market correction gains a hold, TSLA will likely go to $500 which is almost a 50% haircut. If it trades sideways it may stay in the $600-$700 range.

I think most the stocks are going to get 50% haircut. The stuff going on with meme stocks and crypto is just a frenzy there has to be monster crash coming. Bigger than .com crash.

50% haircut....LOL

Rin says

For the most part, if one simply wants a safe vehicle, build something that looks like State St's dividend ETF, SPYD, for yourself. This is the S&P div tracker which separates out the Googles, Amazons, and Teslas which have obscured the S&P500 into a growth biased index rather than an income one.

And the whole idea behind keeping some in MO & T (and I've dumped all of NLY as I'm not into the leveraged mortgage REIT) is that we're near or at a market top. Since these stocks have basically been beaten down already, they really can't go down much further which is great because if the market goes down, then you'll get even more shares per quarter than earlier during the bear channel.

But yeah, they're not a long term buy/hold like a Coca-Cola, J&J, or P&G which you really never need to sell.

1 month later - nice call.

These past few days I've seen videos of a few portfolio managers / head of equity type people say they rotated out of growth and into value or commodities. One of them even specifically recommended buying quality high div stocks (and mentioned both MO and T), and I think that was a recommendation for what to do about rising yields.

In laws house in the suburbs back East spent the winter in escrow with a buyer that couldn't get a mortgage (three strikes and you're out). Recently went back on the market and received multiple offers at list price (8% higher than winter price). Cyclical market demand seems to be there...

very nice buying opportunity in stocks....shopping for some discounted tech stocks .....hope i dont lose my shirt....lol

GME is going up.
I’m happy.
I’m not 100%sure, but evidently it’s because too many Wall Street “geniuses” are short the stonk.
Evidently a short squeeze or something might happen after March 19.
I don’t have new cash, I would buy more stonk mutual funds if I did.

It seems a lot of the bailout money that gushed into stocks is leaving now for bonds instead. At least that's my guess as to what is going on.

The last three days have each been my greatest loss in the market ever, each larger than the previous day. On the other hand, they have just unwound gains that I made fairly recently. Somehow I'm not terribly worried.

I wonder if people will see a connection between Biden taking office and suddenly getting poorer.

I was also wondering if there could be some scenario under which inflation surges and stocks plummet at the same time and concluded there is at least one: China decides to raise prices on everything they sell us, or not sell us anything at all. We would be fucked, because our elite scum has already transferred most of our manufacturing over there, along with the knowledge, in search of short-term profits.

So what manufacturers that remain would not be able to get parts (already happening in the US auto industry) and for other goods, consumers would just have to pay whatever China says (inflation).

And so many businesses and families have been economically devastated by Fauci's virus fraud. So they have nothing to spend. When consumer demand plummets, stocks have to fall eventually as well.

One consolation is that the elite have also fucked themselves by fucking the rest of us.

Hircus says

1 month later - nice call.

I was thinking the same thing yesterday...

Bought some XOM...not happy that I did not buy more!!! Ca 20% rise in a month. Logic behind buying was the expected cold spell.

Patrick says

The last three days have each been my greatest loss in the market ever, each larger than the previous day.

Percentage or $ volume? My funny money portfolio has been doing well. 401K for the wife and I is fucking insane. I know it will come down at some point, but we max out and reinvest the dividends, so we'll just keep going. Also have 10-15yr before we could legitimately retire and not worry about finances, so a medium to big dip would be amazing right now if we repeat a similar cycle since the housing bust. I kind of wish for it.

Some countries are expecting a bit more interest on loans taken by US in plain language (aka purchasing bonds!) on devauated $s. There's cut in oil production, not sure how much it adds up.

Patrick says

I was also wondering if there could be some scenario under which inflation surges

The price of gasoline has gone up a lot in recent weeks. I usually get it at Moe's on McKee & 33rd St in San Jose, whose prices are the lowest in the area. Usually about $0.20 lower than Arco. On February 5, 87 octane was $2.799 per gallon. Today (March 5) $3.219 per gallon. It's a 15% increase in one month.

But I don't think this is inflation. It's higher prices for gasoline. Folks will pay what they must for gasoline so that they can show up for their obligations, like their jobs or whatever. So it will be less spending on other stuff. So overall not inflationary.

I have a spreadsheet with the prices I paid at grocery stores for every time at the different stores here, going back to Q4 of 2017. It includes all the food items, kitchen and bathroom cleaning supplies, personal stuff they sell at grocery stores like soap, toilet tissue, etc. Always compare the same-store / same-item / same-brand prices, with careful attention to sizes so that the spread sheet reflects stuff like the incredibly shrinking portions due to hedonics (Mariana sauce at Trader Joe going from 32 to 30 ounces with the same "nominal" price).

Going back to Q4 of 2017, the price increase for all items from all stores is an annualized 0.67% (ie, nominal 1.0067). For 465 different line items.

Higher fuel costs inflationary! Oh no! The Sky Is Falling Down! Run For The Hills! The higher petrol prices will pass through from diesel for farmers and freight to the retail cash register!

Heard that before in the summer of 2008 when the crude oil hit $150 per barrel and 87 octane at Moe's was approaching $4.50 per gallon.

But the higher oil and gasoline prices were not inflationary. Because people had to make a choice: gas up in order to show up for work, and not spend on something else. Like the HELOC or "Pick Your Payment" mortgage (Wachovia). We know what happened next.

Consumers won't spend more because they can't. I'm not talking about the Silicon Valley Work-From-Home-Hipsters. Maybe there are some of those even in my own household. But they are a privileged niche in the economy that only affect the pricing for housing in the Bay Area and stuff like Status Symbols, Tesla cars, Tesla stocks, and crypto whatever. I'm talking about the rest of us over whom the retailers have no pricing power.

Unless it's Different This Time then the higher petrol prices means the retailers must either find some new methods of Cost Reduction, or accept Lower Margins.

We shall find out.

HunterTits says

B.A.C.A.H. says

But I don't think this is inflation. It's higher prices for gasoline

That's what people...including morons with Ph.Ds in Economics...do not get.

Inflation...is purely a monetary phenomenon.

AFTER that inflation happens do prices go up. And some items are more more inflation sensitive that way than others. Gold is one of them. So has (historically) the price of a new suit (which often hovered around the same price as one oz of gold in most epochs).

Before FDR and the courts fucked over every gold owner with the debasement in '32, you could buy a new suit for $20. You could also go the bank and get a $20 gold coin first to pay for the suit.

Afterwards, suits went for the deflation adjusted equivalent of $35. Later in the decade they went up to actually selling for $35. Of course, you couldn't pay in gold because it was a federal crime to own gold...

Also localized goods and services inflate much more on demand, wage and weak-supply pressure, as they can't easily be substituted with foreign goods/services. That's why measuring inflation by the price of electronics is a joke. With most of the globalized world developed enough to host child slave labor and silicon factories you can produce electronics pretty much anywhere and import them cheaply, even if locally minimum wage bs drives everything else up. What inflates easily are locally grown foods, healthcare, childcare, education and housing and local services as those can't be replaced with supply from foreign imports.

HunterTits says

But we have a lot of morons with Ph.Ds go up on TV and insist on calling that 'price inflation',

"Price Inflation" is a propaganda term, designed to scare common folks about rising prices. "Don't do "X" or we will get "price Inflation." Now if you said "wage Inflation," the common folks may like that, as they think their paychecks will increase. "If we do "Y" we will get "wage inflation."

WookieMan says

Patrick says

The last three days have each been my greatest loss in the market ever, each larger than the previous day.

Percentage or $ volume?

Absolute dollars. It was a bit over 7% down.

But then yesterday erased that day's loss by the end, so now I'm only about 5% down from my peak I think.

Patrick says

The last three days have each been my greatest loss in the market ever, each larger than the previous day. On the other hand, they have just unwound gains that I made fairly recently. Somehow I'm not terribly worried.

Maybe don't listen to me since your buy and hold may yield larger gains than anything else once you have a winner like shop or vcel, but I would have taken the money and ran when shop hit almost 1500, at the minimum I'd have sold 25%. Then again, I would have sold early at 1200 last time as well, and maybe the Fed will throw the kitchen sink at this ailing toppy market, but I think most tech stocks will not see their higs again for a long time. Called it on tsla, it almost got cut by 40% within weeks and could easily lose more. The bubble may not have burst but it definitely has been pricked. I went 20%-25% into money a few weeks ago. Whenever I want to buy a dip now I use margin which has its own risks but I'm steadfast leaving that cash untouched, also for a possible house buy. I'm calling that we've seen the top here, esp. with this administration and inflation can only do so much. Maybe take 10% off on the next oopportunity. We'll see lol

Another thing to consider is that tech stocks are extremely vulnerable to rate hikes.