[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

IonQ quantum computing has almost tripled since I bought it---less than two months ago... still plenty of time to crash before I cash out.

Meanwhile, my psychedelics stocks (Compass Pathways and PSY ETF) have kept sliding down... en route to the trial results expected around December 17th.

NIFE 'fallen knives' ETF is looking a little like a falling knife... AMOM AI-aided momentum ETF has not had much momentum, even though there's pretty convincing research to back up certain momentum approaches (unless they've already been priced in? is better AI beating AMOM---'my AI can beat up your AI'---every AI for itself free-for-AII).

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Sold my housing to buy marijuana and psychedelics....

(More specifically, DHI hit its price target so I sold some and bought MSOS, IIPR, and PSY, among other things... and some resellable music software. Always a brilliant investment....)

[Malankazooie]

What's up with the flash mob smash-and-grab robberies targeting high end b&m? New trend to stick it to the man? Or just opportunists adapting their tactics?

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Few hours after I invested a significant amount in Google and Meta (FB), making exceptions to my usual rule about not investing much in any one company:

'Satori's Dan Niles: S&P 500 will fall in 2022, likes Google, Facebook and cash'

https://seekingalpha...cebook-and-cash

Satori, so clearly I'm enlightened (or was that in a past life now?)... what else is the market for after all? Ni(hi)losrotogati!

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 01 December 2021 - 10:29 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Market continues to see-saw.

Was like Black Friday for lithium and blockchain. (Among others....) Want to invest in lithium mining not so much for the batteries as for fusion research (investment for commercial development heating up in the last week---Google and others pouring billions more into Commonwealth Fusion, major investments in at least two other commercial fusion companies, etc.).

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

The volatile see-saw continues... but I think it will be uphill for most of the rest of the year from here, unless omicron doesn't turn out to be milder than delta (for most people at least---it seems to be hospitalizing children under 5 at a higher rate than previous strains in South Africa, though greater severity for children under 5 could have the silver lining of prompting their parents to get them vaccinated (and vaccinate themselves)...).

Managed to buy some more in the trough this morning, helped along by catching the peak in DHI, which surged significantly past most analysts' price targets. 1400% profit's not bad... for a 'value stock'.

Finding liquid uncorrelated assets (or funds that are consistently good at finding them) really can be tricky. Dipped my toe into some WMTF and FMF hedged futures, though they've really sucked at not being correlated with the market over the last few months. Crypto's correlation with the market has been waxing and waning... same goes for gold, various types of historically low beta stocks, etc. Hoping that by diversifying my quasi-uncorrelated assets I'll be better able to weather the bears when they wake... enact my own see-saw hedge of 'buy X low, sell Y high,' 'sell X high, buy Y low'.

[Malankazooie]

The Big Quit / The Great Resignation is real. I've experienced it first hand. Needing to pick up some antifreeze for my vehicle, I stopped by a popular auto parts retail chain this morning. On the door was a hand written note - "Today 1/13 we are closed due to understaffing. We will be closed for the foreseeable future. Thank you for your patronage"

Piece from 60 Minutes this past Sunday.

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Malankazooie, on 13 January 2022 - 05:58 PM, said:

The Big Quit / The Great Resignation is real. I've experienced it first hand. Needing to pick up some antifreeze for my vehicle, I stopped by a popular auto parts retail chain this morning. On the door was a hand written note - "Today 1/13 we are closed due to understaffing. We will be closed for the foreseeable future. Thank you for your patronage"

Piece from 60 Minutes this past Sunday.

Stock market's still pricing in the expectation both it and omicron-driven labor shortages will end soon, but I think there's a good chance neither will---and more businesses will invest in robotics and automation, and once successful adoption becomes more visible (or more widely reported) and more normalized, it will accelerate. An inflection point in robotics adoption was already expected by some experts (though not by most Wall Street analysts apparently) as a consequence of advances in computer vision---not robot butlers but robots doing more in warehouses, loading and unloading packages, etc. Intelligent robotic touch is being developed and will hopefully advance quickly, eventually enabling robots to perform more sensitive tasks without requiring much or any human supervision.

OTOH corporate overlords may 'work with' lawmakers to try to crush workers back into low-paying (and in many cases dangerous, at least while the pandemic still rages) jobs they hate....

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 14 January 2022 - 12:07 AM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'The Fate of [...] Biden's Presidency Is in Jerome Powell's Hands

[...] history suggests he'll blow it.

[...] The mission? Bring down inflation without accidentally tipping the U.S. into a recession. With consumer prices rising at their fastest pace since the early 1980s, the Fed will try to slow them back down by raising interest rates in the coming months. Chairman Jerome Powell has said that he and his colleagues will likely begin to hike rates starting in March. Investors and financial reporters are buzzing with speculation about just how aggressively the Fed might move, with some wondering if we are about to witness the monetary policy equivalent of a "shock and awe" campaign.

[...] "There have been few, if any, instances in which inflation has been successfully stabilized without recession," former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers wrote[...]

[...] economist J.W. Mason[...] recently argued [...] the Fed simply isn't capable of fine-tuning inflation[...] "there's no reason to think the Fed can engineer a smooth landing. They either provoke a recession or don't do much of anything at all."

Why is it so hard for the Fed to fight inflation without bringing about a recession? One standard answer boils down to psychology. Most economists believe that inflation in the present is in large part determined by what people expect inflation to be in the future: If a business owner thinks prices will rise quickly, for instance, she'll hike her own in anticipation.

Once the public becomes convinced inflation is here to stay, [...] it requires a major shock to the economy to convince them otherwise, like a recession that forces prices down. [...]

[...] In order to slow inflation at all, the Fed has to raise them so high that it crushes consumer demand. In this view, interest rates are a bit like a light switch without a dimmer; you can use them to flip growth on or off, but not tweak it to just where you'd like. Or, as Mason recently wrote, "being able to sink a ship is not the same as being able to steer it. The fact that the Fed can, if it tries hard enough, trigger a recession, does not mean that it can maintain steady growth."

[...] especially tricky inflation challenges that it's not really equipped to solve. There's not much Powell can personally do to fix the supply chain problems in the semiconductor or auto industries; he can't make China keep running its factories when a COVID case strikes.

[...]

As University of Oregon professor Tim Duy put it[...]: "Has [inflation] ever really reverted without some sort of Fed action that triggers a recession? I would say that within any reasonable time span, the answer is no."'

https://slate.com/bu...ome-powell.html

'A surprising jobs report makes Washington's job easier.

[...] Officials had expected to find themselves in the uncomfortable position of [raising interest rates], and signaling what comes next, at a time when the latest job market data looked a little bleak. Instead, they will be doing it at a moment when both price gains and wage growth appear heady.'

'The strong wage data will [probably] encourage the Fed to deliver "at least four and possibly more rate hikes this year," [...]

"If wage growth remains this strong, the Fed may have to raise rates further over the next few years than the market is currently pricing," [...]

[...] this might increase the odds of a supersize rate increase in March. The Fed typically raises borrowing costs in quarter-percentage point increments, but some investors have begun to pencil in a coming half-point move.

Friday's data "will inevitably further fuel expectations of the Fed unleashing a larger" increase in March'

https://www.nytimes....d-politics.html

'I don't think this is a gift for Powell. I think it is a reminder that the Fed is so far behind the curve they can't even see the curve.'

https://twitter.com/...649963730493440

Charging headlong into the next recession (with a Trump presidency on top)?...

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'The U.S. government has one tool to slow down the great chase of inflation[...] By raising the rate at which the federal government lends money to banks, the Federal Reserve makes it more expensive for businesses or consumers to take out loans themselves. This brings demand in the economy more in line with supply. [...]

[...] What if the problem was caused by too few goods? Worse, what if the economy lost the ability to produce goods over time, throwing off the dollars-to-goods ratio? [...] the kingdom's outlying farms were destroyed by a dragon: The price of food would increase inside the castle walls, but it would be the dragon's fault, not the royal mint's. And the solution would be neither to raise taxes nor to slow the minting of coins from the king's mines. In fact, if the king tried to claw back coins, then he could prolong the crisis: The townspeople would still use their meager earnings to bid up the price of food, but they would have less money to do it with, so everyone would be poorer and hungry. The king would instead need to import more grain, or ration out supplies, or plant more farms (hopefully in dragon-proof regions).

[...] ultimately globalization has stretched the castle walls as far as they can go, and the realm remains dependent on certain key and vulnerable places. A single woodland province furnishes timber for most American homes; a single highland country grows nearly half of the world's magic beans; a single foundry on a distant island makes most of the thinking rocks that go inside American phones. Yet if something were to happen to the supply of goods from those places, we always have the same answer: The royal mint can fix it.

[...] some of our outlying lands are dragon-scarred. Yet if the climate scars on supply continue to grow, does the Federal Reserve have the right tools to manage? [...]

"Raising interest rates will blunt demand for housing—no doubt. But if you blunt demand enough to bring lumber prices down, you're destroying the economy[...] For us to have lower lumber prices, we can only build a million homes a year. Do you really want to do that?

"Raising rates [...] doesn't grow more trees." Nor does it grow more coffee, end a drought, or bring certainty to the energy transition. And if our new era of climate-driven inflation takes hold, America will need more than higher interest rates to bring balance to supply and demand.'

The World Isn't Ready for Climate-Change-Driven Inflation - The Atlantic

'These 2 numbers sum up why the housing market won't get back to normal for a long time

The combination of rising home prices, low mortgage rates that are locked in by current homeowners and low supply makes it unappealing to sell your house and look for another one right now.

[...] It sure doesn't seem like housing prices are going to stop rising any time soon and rents are also on the rise, so it makes sense people are choosing to hold onto their original property even after buying something new. They can simply charge enough rent to cover the mortgage, insurance and taxes and still come out ahead by slowly paying down a cheap mortgage and seeing their house go up in value.

If I had to guess it's going to be years until we see anything approaching a "normal" housing market. We simply didn't build enough homes following the last housing crash to meet the demand coming from millennials reaching their household formation years.

Things are finally picking up, but we have years and years of underbuilding to make up for. And it's not like the supply-chain problems, government regulations and COVID are making it any easier to build homes any faster.

[...] rising rates would also likely keep a lid on housing supply because so many people have locked in low rates. Why sell to buy a house for a higher price with higher borrowing costs?

[...] it's probably going to take a long time until we see some sort of equilibrium between supply and demand in the housing market.'

https://www.marketwa...ars-11643900338

... unless the increase in interest rates is truly massive and drives up mortgage rates... while thrusting the US into a recession.

We should be focusing more on increasing supply (including the efficiency and resilience of the supply chain)---investing in automation, more (space and time) efficient warehousing, more localized manufacturing, and (to offset climate change driven scarcity) new farming techniques (mix of genomics, hydroponics, etc.) and new substitutes for coffee, chocolate, wine, etc. And on transitioning to a post fossil fuel world ASAP---transition to electric vehicles etc. Increasing interest rates makes all of this more difficult.

This post has been edited by Azath Vitr (D'ivers: 05 February 2022 - 07:07 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

The prospect of interest raised being raised repeatedly in the future is causing more demand, not less: '"Housing data has indicated that rising mortgage rates are creating a sense of urgency, rather than deterring potential homebuyers, and prices continue to rise while the few homes available for sale are snapped up quickly"'


https://www.marketwa...oof2&yptr=yahoo

Fed tries to keep raising interest rates, people who need to take out a mortgage become more motivated to buy now (granted, it's true that the interest rate only affects the mortgage rate indirectly, but it's still a strong effect)... Fed increases inflation. Same goes for people who want to take out loans. Cycle only stops when people can literally no longer afford minimum payments on houses etc.

'Short of throwing millions of people out of work in a recession, higher rates wouldn't bring supply and demand back into balance, a necessary condition for price stability.

[...]


Not much borrowing

The justification for a rate hike now seems to be that cheap credit has allowed spending to overrun the economy's ability to produce what people want to buy. With credit-fueled demand exceeding supply, prices are rising quickly. By raising short-term rates, the Fed hopes to slow the economy by making it more expensive for consumers and businesses to borrow money.

But does that story hold water right now? No.

In the past year, as inflation has ignited, credit growth has been anemic despite very low interest rates[...] Real household debt has increased just 2.2% annualized since the pandemic began while business borrowing is growing at the slowest pace in eight years, even after businesses loaded up on cheap pandemic loans early in 2020.

[...]


Incomes aren't overheating, either.

Real disposable personal incomes soared during the pandemic from stimulus checks, tax and debt relief, and unemployment payments, but per-capita real incomes are now running at a level just 1.9% higher than when the pandemic began.

Aggregate spending isn't out of control (it's up 2.4% annualized since the pandemic began), but the pandemic has steered spending to some industries and away from others. [...]


Stopping inflation means controlling the pandemic and helping the economy adjust to a new normal. To strengthen and shorten our supply chains for the inevitable next wave or next pandemic, we need significant investments in new domestic and global supply capacity, including manufacturing and transportation. Above all, it means luring back millions of potential workers who are put off by lousy, unsafe and low-paying jobs.

Higher interest rates won't help us make those adjustments.

[...] while higher wages would help lure back workers, the Fed is fixated on its fear of the dreaded wage-push inflationary spiral, in which workers who've gotten a taste of higher wages will insist on getting more every year[...]

[...] Businesses raise their prices when they can get away with it. Full stop. Workers may have once had some bargaining power over wages, but their clout has eroded. Even with strong gains this year, weekly wages have lost about 2% of their purchasing power to inflation over the past year.

[...] Prices are going up because crucial inputs—labor, electronics, energy, housing, transportation—are in short supply. Normally, the way to solve this imbalance would be to give workers and businesses incentives to increase their supply. [...]

Markets often cannot reach this equilibrium on their own, so policy makers must push and pull their levers to keep the macroeconomy on the right track.

The Fed has been assigned the job of fixing this. Unfortunately, the Fed doesn't have the tools to do it. Monetary policy works (in theory) by tweaking demand, but it has no direct impact on supply.'

Opinion: Why interest rates aren't really the right tool to control inflation - MarketWatch

Of course, most of the rest of the so-called 'developed world'---with the notable exception of Japan---is poised, like lemmings getting driven by Disney,

to follow the US
into the abyss
and sink my stonks

(in all seriousness I anticipated this last summer and have been diversifying for it, but it still might screw me for a while)

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

To be fair, the UK went first.

'Once more into the breach recession!'

Instead of cooling the housing market, successive interest rate hikes and the expectation of more to come have done the opposite: 'new buyer inquiries were up 15% and the average stock of homes listed for sale just 12 per estate agent branch, a record low. Buoyant mortgage approvals also point to an exceptionally tight housing market'.

http://www.marketwat...iteid=rss&rss=1

So my DHI (US home construction) will probably bounce back... unless the recession drags it down (like the original Jason...).

'The Bank of England’s Decision to Raise Interest Rates Is Dangerous and Irresponsible

[...] Economist Paul Krugman famously quipped that anyone who thought that increasing the money supply would cause inflation without also increasing aggregate demand was committed to a belief in “immaculate inflation.” Similarly, we could say that thinking that tightening the money supply will lead to the opposite results, without further consequences, entails belief in immaculate deflation.

[...] we should be careful to understand what politicians and the media have termed the “cost of living crisis” within the context of Britain’s long-term economic decline.

Real wages remain below the level they were before the 2008 financial crisis[...] Real post-tax labor incomes (earnings after taxes and adjusted for inflation) are expected to fall a further 2 percent this year and not recover until 2024. The crisis is as much about this shortfall of earnings as it is about rising living costs. It is not obvious how further wage deflation helps to address this.

[...]

It is analogous to administering an antibiotic to fight a viral infection: it won’t help, and the patient might expire.

[...] it’s not even clear that current price movements constitute “inflation” in any meaningful sense. The movements have been too particular, too sectoral. They don’t reflect that broad-based decrease in the purchasing power of money. They are not driven by sustained wage increases that are feeding through to prices.

[...] prices are set by firms. [... Bank of England governor] Bailey thought it necessary to call on workers to moderate their wage demands, rather than cautioning businesses about the inflationary risk of stabilizing their profits at any cost. Such a request comes after a decade of tolerating rapid asset price inflation, driven in part by the bank’s policies. The message seems clear: price controls are fine, but only for labor.

[...]

It is a rare event for a globally concerted tightening cycle not to induce a recession. In this case, it might choke off an already muted recovery. Outside of the United States [...] growth has proven tepid and unsteady, with demand dampened by stagnant household incomes, and supply still constricted by tangled distribution chains. All in all, this is not the time to abandon low rates.

The call for wage moderation is at odds with the stated policy of Boris Johnson’s conservative government, which has pledged a “high wage and high growth” economy. Meanwhile, the highest strata of financial capital has called for restraint when it comes to fighting inflation, [...] With their plans, then, central banks are putting themselves in a strange place: well to the right of usually inflation-averse conservative politicians and asset managers.

Economist Dario Perkins wryly remarked: “We should have a race. The first central bank to crash their economy with rate hikes wins a prize.” Britain seems to have given itself a head start.'

https://jacobinmag.c...emand-wages-uk/

Meanwhile, in the US...

'Polling consistently indicates that voters loathe inflation. In 2013, when inflation was nonexistent, a majority of Americans cited inflation as “a very big problem.” It is less popular today.

[...] higher interest rates from the Federal Reserve [...] may well bring prices down, but it will do so by attacking the incomes of ordinary Americans, particularly those at the edges of the labor market.

Given Senate gridlock, this may well be the best that policy makers can do with the tools available to them. But it is not the only way to deal with rising prices. An excess-profits tax on businesses is one; rent control for families is another. [...]

The Great Recession was a generational cataclysm for the American middle class. The COVID-19 recession has not been, because policy makers have prioritized the benefits of a high-demand economy over the risk of moderately rising prices. They should not be ashamed of their success.'

https://www.theatlan...utm_source=feed

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

'MSOS: Sen. McConnell upset marijuana banking legislation included in China trade bill'

Damn you turtle man!

https://seekingalpha...news%7Cline%3A3

[Malankazooie]

McConnell prefers his greens served leafy, on a paper plate in his terrarium.

[Macros]

one of the biggest thing with any "democracy" assholes lumping bills together, make everything a separate clear issue, give no one any place to hide

[Malankazooie]

Super Bowl.

2000 - dot-com (i.e. pets.com).

2022 - crypto (i.e. this: https://www.youtube....h?v=1zLsUhOCqyU), worst example of the many on display during the course of the game.

We know how this ends, right?

This post has been edited by Malankazooie: 14 February 2022 - 01:20 PM

[Malankazooie]

Before we make the turn into the 2030s (if we get there), Elon's musk is going to be on everything.

[Malankazooie]

Twitter is his now - 44 billy.

[Tsundoku]

The ‘evil genius plot’ behind the cryptocurrency market crash
The cryptocurrency market has had billions in value wiped off it after an epic fail and now the accusations are flying that something sinister went down.

https://www.news.com...88a45f753ffabc3

I don't know much about these things, but what I do know for sure is someone, somewhere made an absolute fucking killing out of it.

This post has been edited by Tsundoku: 14 May 2022 - 05:01 PM

[Azath Vitr (D'ivers]

Tsundoku, on 14 May 2022 - 05:00 PM, said:

The ‘evil genius plot’ behind the cryptocurrency market crash
The cryptocurrency market has had billions in value wiped off it after an epic fail and now the accusations are flying that something sinister went down.

https://www.news.com...88a45f753ffabc3

I don't know much about these things, but what I do know for sure is someone, somewhere made an absolute fucking killing out of it.

Hope it wasn't anyone connected with (funding for) Putin (or the Trumpists for that matter)... so many possibilities though.