[Coco with marshmallows]

So.

It occurs to me that a number of us are now getting on in years and so presumable have begun (or are thinking of beginning) some kind of nest egg/saving for future usage.

As such i figure an informal thread where we could discuss possible investments may be of some use, if only for comparative purposes around the world.
I did consider posting this in the Inn, but i feel that given the subject matter (£££ or $$$ or €€€, etc- delete as applicable) it perhaps requires a slightly more serious home.

It can also serve as a source of information for those who are entirely new to investing and are seeking some advice from somewhat more experienced people in the area.

As such, i'll just run through the basics quickly:

What is a share - it's a 'share' of the ownership of a company. Usually in investing terms this means a public limited company (so called as the shares can be traded publicly on a stock market. You can buy and sell shares freely in your own country, and in some cases many others. There are occasionally some hoops you have to jump through if you wish to buy and sell shares in companies listed on foreign markets. Most countries have their own stock markets, usually known by an abbreviation. For example, the stock market in the UK is actually called the Financial Times Stock Exchange, but most refer to it as FTSE (pronounced foot-see if you're curious)

What is market cap - market cap, or more accurately market capitalisation, is the size of the company according to the market. So if a company has 1,000 shares, each valued at £10, the market cap is £10,000. Simples.

What is an index - an index is a group of companies, usually clumped together as a measure of their comparative market cap. For instance, the FTSE 100 is the largest 100 companies (by market cap) in the UK. The list gets updated regularly as companies grow or shrink in and out of the top 100.

What shares should i buy - this is the big one. It comes entirely down to personal taste, and your own levels of risk appetite. NEVER FORGET - shares are risky. you can lose everything you have invested. Which leads me to......


Coco's top 5 rules for investing:

1 - Only ever invest money you are willing to lose. Once the money is invested, treat it as if it's gone and you're never getting it back. In other words, always try to have a cash reserve somewhere such that if the markets collapse and you lose your job on the same day, you have something to fall back on.

2 - Research your investment. Taking advice from someone on a bulletin board doesn't count. Not even if it's from me Always be comfortable with what you're investing in, and know what you're investing in. Having said that, feel free to ask for advice in this thread (assuming it doesn't die a lonely death and this is the only post made in it........) I'll give you an honest answer to the best of my abilities.

3 - Be tax smart with your investment. Suppose you hit the mother lode, i.e. you invested in Apple back in the day when it was dirt cheap. You're sitting on millions, right? Maybe not. In the UK you will be hit by Capital Gains Tax if you seek to cash out too much at once, so the govt. may take a great big bite of that Apple - UNLESS - you're invested via the various tax beneficial routes (in the UK this would be ISA or SIPP)

4 - Seriously, only invest money you are willing to lose. People like to dress it up, but ultimately, shares ARE a form of gambling. Nothing more, nothing less.

5 - see 1 & 4.

Having said all that (long post is looooooooong) I'll now throw open the debate (hopefully) - any questions about investing?
Any advice/tips you'd like to give?

Anybody?........

[Itwæs Nom]

Reminds me of this.

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This post has been edited by Charlie Nom: 29 August 2015 - 01:03 PM

[Malankazooie]

*thread necro.

What's your take on GameStop?

Is that just a bunch of redditors translating a raid boss battle into investing irl to give a big middle finger to Hedge Fundsazerius the Invincible?

[Tiste Simeon]

That's the way Reddit seems to be taking it. The users that is, I think the sub has been banned because the website itself needs to think of it's investors? I'm not sure.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Pretty much; same with AMC and some other stocks.

Also a good reminder that short selling can be extremely dangerous. Even moreso going forward. The broader market is already responding by re-weighting heavily shorted stocks that could be next.

I haven't looked into it much---generally the problem is you don't know how long it will keep going up, and after it peaks people are going to cash out and it will crash. Ironically the institutional investors with high-speed fiber-optic cable connections and AI capable of responding rapidly would have an advantage over all except perhaps the very first retail investors involved when it comes time to cash out---provided their bots have been scanning reddit and are now scanning whatever forums these discussions have gone to. Not sure if they have stated points at which they'll cash out---after forcing specific short squeezes?---but if so the institutional investors will beat them to it.

So much capital put towards short-term trading (and medium-term investing) helps keep the 'efficient market' from already pricing in the future value of long-term investments to the point of making investing pointless. Also, short-term capital gains are taxed at a higher rate, so I almost never bother.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 28 January 2021 - 02:29 AM

[Cause]

Yeah I suspect a lot of the ‘little peopel’ will get burned more than they realized even if they hurts some big investors too.

[Gwynn ap Nudd]

There's also nothing that shows the drivers of the stock manipulation are small investors. Not likely institutional investors due to how blatant the manipulation looks, but not necessarily small fries either. Wouldn't really surprise me if this was originated by people with gobs of cash looking to rake in some fast profits.

[Cyphon]

I suspect this won't be a black and white good versus bad scenario. But it is good that the market manipulation by the hedges is taking a hit. Stock market is just gambling really isn't it?

[Macros]

Mmmmm
More like gambling on a football game where the ref and half the players are trying to rig the game

[Andorion]

Tiste Simeon, on 28 January 2021 - 12:45 AM, said:

That's the way Reddit seems to be taking it. The users that is, I think the sub has been banned because the website itself needs to think of it's investors? I'm not sure.

last I checked, wallstreetbets is still open.

[Tiste Simeon]

Andorion, on 28 January 2021 - 11:39 AM, said:

Tiste Simeon, on 28 January 2021 - 12:45 AM, said:

That's the way Reddit seems to be taking it. The users that is, I think the sub has been banned because the website itself needs to think of it's investors? I'm not sure.

last I checked, wallstreetbets is still open.

It was shut down and reopened. The explanation is that due to the unprecedented focus on them they were hit with tons of bots and spammers and the like so it was a bit of house cleaning.

[Khellendros]

I think this is a really interesting situation. I've been following it for about a week or so. I would say what's happening is more of a 'good' thing than a 'bad' thing. Essentially some medium-sized hedge funds betting on companies failing and people losing jobs have been losing billions, in this case on Gamestop. But it's not just about betting. Whether Gamestop would fail or turn its fortunes around was besides the point - these hedge funds actively take steps to try and ensure the share price they bet on falling DOES indeed fall. Market manipulation in all but name.

Now yes, those making money off of this (at least on paper) are not just small-time redditors, but also even larger investors than those medium-sized hedge fund who had/have shares in Gamestop. Even so, this situation is bringing to daily attention: 1) how crooked the game is; and 2) how disassociated from reality it is - the stock market is no measure of economic health.

It's laughable, yet unsurprising, that now some media talking heads are speaking about greater market regulation when some small-fry discussion board investors pull moves that Wall Street has been doing forever.

[QuickTidal]

Watching billionaires cry and howl about "foul play" and "regulations" on live TV because the regular Joe masses played them at their own fucking game is delicious to me.

And it's more about revealing that the system is beyond broken, but everyone, the SEC included (heard they were investigating the Sub...I don't know why, no one broke any rules) only care about it now that it's not the super rich doing it. Which should be proof to anyone how gamed the system has been for a long time.


I heard some of these whiners were even talking about making talking about stocks on social media illegal? Like fuck off...you don't get to change the laws just because the plebs took you down for all your money doing what you do and have been doing.

This post has been edited by QuickTidal: 28 January 2021 - 02:54 PM

[amphibian]

Gwynn ap Nudd, on 28 January 2021 - 05:17 AM, said:

There's also nothing that shows the drivers of the stock manipulation are small investors. Not likely institutional investors due to how blatant the manipulation looks, but not necessarily small fries either. Wouldn't really surprise me if this was originated by people with gobs of cash looking to rake in some fast profits.

From what I can tell, the initial drivers were indeed regular people and the reddit crowd. Once it started working, the gargantuan funds then hopped on and drove the minor short squeeze into an infinite squeeze. One has even managed to lend money to the medium sized fund in return for pieces of its ownership and future profits.

So it's been hijacked somewhat, but the regular people who started this are getting some money out of it, which is good. The people who gave the medium sized fund the pension money (especially after the founder somehow escaped jail time for the insider trading he was doing at SAC a few years ago) are somewhat hurt, yet probably not seriously hurt.

It's notable that the quick action to protect the "consumers" blocks a big chunk of the regular people from doing stuff and not so much blocking things like shorting a company with 140% of existing stock.

[QuickTidal]

I think the bigger fish got involved once Musk tweeted out GAMESTONK...and I mean, he has good reason to hate Hedge Funds anyways, since they always want to try to take Tesla down.

WallStreetBets went down (might be back up now?) but WallStreetBets2 was there to take its place immediately. LOL

[amphibian]

Musk getting wind of this likely happened hours after the big fish moved. He's a rich playboy, but he is somewhat running Space X and Tesla, so he does not have the time and space to be part of the first movers for the big fish.

It's a bit interesting to see what talk and actions are being taken in the name of "protecting the average person". I'm not sure some of what I am seeing lines up with that and I don't know enough about this complicated stuff to say "this is what should be done".

I'm hoping there's experts who care about the average person and have good ideas that will be adopted, but seeing longtime finance reporters for big news companies be "flabbergasted" or start talking like they're in bed with the hedge fund people is dismaying. The broad strokes seem pretty comprehensible. The things like being able to be leveraged to 140% allowing the possibility of infinite squeeze or the even higher multiples in the 2008 collapse seem like very bad things to be legal.

[QuickTidal]

amphibian, on 28 January 2021 - 04:25 PM, said:

but seeing longtime finance reporters for big news companies be "flabbergasted" or start talking like they're in bed with the hedge fund people is dismaying.

This should be the biggest takeaway...that even the financial rags and shows and hosts are taking shots now at this and crying foul.

It's literally the Super Rich being mad because the Poor people learned how to play the game. It's astonishing how fast they jumped up and cried out.

They are 100% in bed with the big boys and hedge funds...there's no other reason. It's a massive double standard to say that a hedge fund shorting is okay when the big boys do it...but get mad when their shorting (which is already an unpalatable and shady thing to do) is squeezed by thousands of people buying in. I see no other reason for (example) the Financial Times to write an op-ed about how this "isn't" a revolution and how it's all going to crash down around the WSB's crew ears. Not realizing that it's less about making money, and more about showing the broken system. I expect this will also draw the legal beagles down onto the shorting the hedge fund guys were doing anyways...at least thats' how I understand it.

Also from what I understand they (Hedge Funds) are even off-hours trading (something retailers can't do easily) to try to scare the WSB crew off by showing the stock dropping a bit....but it's also a ploy to get them to sell and drop the price so they don't have to buy back the squeeze amounts...and the WSB crowd already saw it coming and know it will happen every night for a while, but that once trading opens each day the price will jump back up. So it's not working.

The thing that's really fucked them now is the medium boys (millionaires and whatnot; rich but not super rich) are involved which will keep those stocks high no matter how much trading happens off hours to try to drop it artificially.

Man, I've learned more in the last 48 hours about the stock maters than I've ever known just from listening to people talk about this. FFS Blockbuster, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Tootsie Roll all boosted after AMC. Blockbuster...which only has stockholders still because there is a single store left. LOL

[Khellendros]

Robinhood, the app most used by the small investors to buy shares in Gamestop, has now barred trading in Gamestop shares (alongside a number of other companies). As far as I understand it, Robinhood doesn't do trades directly, but deals through a company called Citadel, and Citadel recently (as in the last few days) gave a billion+ injection to one of the struggling hedge funds (Melvin I think). So if they've refused to deal in those shares, then Robinhood can't provide the service to their app users.

The price of Gamestop shares has now begun tanking as a result.

[QuickTidal]

And AOC has jumped into the fray with a threatened investigation at the federal level...shit is about to get even worse for the 1%ers I think.



Watch for RH to release the ability to buy again on that threat and claim some "technical glitch"

But yeah, it's like watching the the free market prove itself out as not being remotely "free" at all.

[amphibian]

Citadel that does the transactions for Robinhood and Citadel that bailed out the medium hedge fund are two different entities - but started by the same man.

That man (and his entities) wins coming and going here, so the fix seems in to keep things predictable for him.