Screwball

31 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

it's sort of funny how much 65-75 looks like 2000-2009 -- same bactrian camel over almost the same time span.

That's why this looks nuts. Since the March 2009 low to where we are today, the market (S&P) has went up 939%. Annual return (CAGR) is over 15%. They put Bernie Madoff in jail for promising 13.

When the banksters blew up the world in 2008/2009 the market went from 1550 to 666. A loss of 57% in five months. You need 133% to get it back. How long is that going to take? 

This is one of the great conversations on the markets. How do you play them, how do you invest? It's the biggest casino in the world, and even more punitive. Let's look at some chart porn just for fun. This is as far back as my software can go. A chart of the S&P going back to around 1930. It is obvious, that over all those years (almost 100) the candles go from the bottom left to the top right. That's a good thing. 

That also makes a case that you put your money in and it goes up and up and up. Sure looks like it. How old are you? When are you planning on retiring, with enough money to live the life you want to live, and how much does that need to be? Sure, I have a 401k, I'll be fine. That's what my Edward Jones guy tells me, or my personal banker.

Below is the chart porn from 1930. The yellow circle is from around 1990 to 2013ish.

As you can see the run-up from the 30s until the Dot-com bubble blew up it was as good as it gets. The greatest bull market in history. If you became working age around 1940 and invested you made a killing. The next chart gets us a little closer to today.

The great bull market ended on March 1, 2000 and peaked at $1552.87. By the week of October 10, 2002, it was at 768.63. We then went another 5 years to the week of October 10, 2007 when it took another ****. Isn't that wild? So from October it went from 1550 to 666. You can do the math. Same with the first one.

Now look at it. Up and to the right. How long you think that is going to go on? Timing matters. There isn't much anyone can do about it, you are stuck with what is available, and most importantly, how old you are. Some are lucky, and some aren't. I know people from both crashes that had to work more years because they lost their ass in their 401ks.

30 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

that game is a bit rigged. If you sell out of equities and go into bonds you will do better than 1%. Nobody has to leave  their stock sales proceeds sitting at 1% yield.

That said, I wouldn't advise anyone to try and out-anticipate the market as a short term investment strategy, but that's not quite the same thing as deciding that longer term you are overall  over (or under) exposed to stocks at a point in history.

They have courses to teach you. Here is one of them:

10 five minute videos to teach you what stocks to buy. Outstanding. Too bad some of the guy who spent years learning the markets, how to read balance sheets, technical analysis, and how to manage a portfolio didn't get this deal.

8 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

It kinda proves that timing the market is a fool's errand.

It kinda doesn't really prove ****. Other than the suckers who don't know what the hell they are talking about.

2 hours ago, Edman85 said:

I think I found this link on Bogleheads...

 

https://personalfinanceclub.com/time-the-market-game/

I don't know what that's suppose to prove or it's purpose. It has no relationship to how one should read a market, the technicals of said market, or anything related to informed trading.

Latest S&P chart after close today. Watching that big red candle back to 10/10 and the lower support level. What do we have here Alice?

We have a little peaky under that $6550.78, at close. Futures has recovered some. 

4 hours ago, ewsieg said:

We're a big company, so while we do have a large acquisition going on right now, this specifically was done for cost cutting purposes only.  We were specifically told none of these jobs were lost to AI, simply we needed to get leaner and meaner.

It's always about the bottom line. What makes it so difficult is being the henchmen who are forced to carry it out. Then, the poor foot soldiers who keep the trains running on time get hammered with more work. Sorry kids, I have miss your ballgame because deadline... Until they are next, and they will be. The below picture tells the story, except the stock went up 17% that day. Cha-ching.

2 hours ago, ewsieg said:

My company was hit with layoffs today.  My team escaped any hit, but the news is reporting about 17% of our non-union workforce was affected. 

We knew it was coming and read that October had more companies submit WARN notices in a month since 2003.  

I re-balanced my 401k to be heavier on the bond side once I got off of my 'all clear' meeting.  I think the AI bubble will keep the stock market up for a bit still, but you can't outrun unemployment and I feel like that's going to hit before the AI bubble does.  

If I am allowed to be nosy, did they give any reasons for the layoffs? I would be curious of what the company said, and what the reasons are according to the employees. 

People are the easiest and quickest way to help the bottom line. Reducing people saves money and they don't care about much else. You can now do someone else's job along with yours. Your welcome, or your next.

I went through this in 2017. They laid off hundreds then announced a mutimillion dollar expansion. Imagine that.

3 hours ago, Screwball said:

More chart porn. This is today's chart of the MAGS, the ETF that is made up of the following companies; Alphabet (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), NVIDIA (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), and Tesla (TSLA).

3 month chart. Yellow arrow shows the gap it created today at open. This gap will at some point, close.

 

That didn't take long. Mr. Market started out good, but has now given it all back and then some. This is the same chart. The gap has already filled.

More chart porn. This is today's chart of the MAGS, the ETF that is made up of the following companies; Alphabet (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), NVIDIA (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), and Tesla (TSLA).

3 month chart. Yellow arrow shows the gap it created today at open. This gap will at some point, close.

Today was NVDA day. NVDA is the market, and this current blimp size bubble big money has blown. NVDA is the the head of steamship of the MAGS as they are known. As NVDA goes, the market goes. Their market cap is equivalent to around 17% of our GDP. They reported earning after the market closed today. As it turns out it wasn't really too eventful. A little chart porn.

First is a 9 month showing NVDA price action.

What I thought would be fun is to see how it reacted after hours when they reported and the conference call. It didn't do too much all day, but after hours it got a little goofy. The big jump was when earning numbers hit. Then it drifted a little higher. The crazy part is the 4 huge moves after hours shown by the long lower candle tails. What's going on one wonders?

1 hour ago, romad1 said:

I feel like AI shenanigans deserve their own thread.  There is just so much of this stuff out there about its failings and people overweighting it as the next step in our evolution.  

Maybe if you didn't have half the people on this board on ignore you would know AI has been talked about in this thread going back at least 10 pages. Try to keep up Gomer.

25 minutes ago, Motor City Sonics said:

Pet Peeve 

Chrysler's design for replacing their headlights on the Chrysler 200. 

I have to go in through the wheel well.  There's a little plastic screw.   I can't budge the screw because the tire is in the way and you can't get it straight on.   When I found a really small screwdriver it wasn't strong enough to budge it PLUS, the groove in the plastic screw is too shallow to get anything deep enough to have the power to move it.  

$18 bulb.   I have to take it to a mechanic.   That'll probably cost at least $80.  

 

****ing Stupid.  

The main ingredient is to make it easy on the assembly lines. Something has to happen every X amount of seconds. It also proves they are designed by people who probably never changed a tire.

25 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I can't tell you what particular properties make for good paving asphalt, but I can tell you that the asphalt available on the market for pavers has changed a lot in recent years. The drive to recover more from every barrel of crude, and the pumping of lower and lower quality crudes, plus products like Canadian tar sands, have resulted in big changes in the composition of the 'bottoms' product from crude stills that used to be the traditional source of asphalt, And increasingly refineries have installed cokers - which consume the steams that would beome asphalt within the refinery, so little or no asphalt is produced at all. Since there is less around, you are perforce going to get less choice of quality. I suppose if and when the EV reigns supreme and oil production drops by large percentages, paving with asphalt may become a rarity altogether.

Sounds legit to me, and not surprising. Add that in with poor prep (what they lay down first - that tar isn't what it once was either). The chemicals, or lack thereof, are a large part no doubt. I see it also like they used to do with plastic. You were allow so much re-grind in the recipe, but they would cheat. I'm guessing the roads are the same way.

I know some guys who do paving. These are the truck drivers hauling the loads and the ones who run the paving machines. They have told me over the years the quality of the asphalt has deteriorated. I wouldn't doubt that a bit. We can see it in town. They pave the main roads more often than they used to. I think they cheat buy using more grinding in the mix than they should. All about the money and the swindle. 

I thought this was funny.  Might also be partially true.

https://x.com/CramerTracker/status/1990823529839788217

Won't link for some reason. The Tweet is from Inverse Jim Cramer and it a parody account. It says;

Not to be overdramatic but if Nvidia misses earnings tomorrow we’re going extinct btw

7 minutes ago, oblong said:

My tip is riding a bike is no substitute for walking when you’ve had too many. One week we thought “let’s ride our bikes.”   I couldn’t ride a bike kind of drunk.   I miss that place.  Closed during covid. Never reopened.  Owner lived down the street from me and retired and moved up north. Whoever bought the building gutted it. It’s been empty since.  The burgers were great. Nothing special about them except fresh but with soft sesame buns with crinkle fries.  

True story. About 15 years ago a guy I knew was at a neighbors house about a quarter of a mile away from where he lived. He rode his bike home. It was a slight grade downhill - easy - didn't even have to petal much. He was gassed. Turned into his driveway and crashed. There was a cop somewhere and swooped in. Busted him for a dui. I heard it on the police radio.

He was close to home and riding a bike because he was due in court a few weeks later for a pending dui. Good guy, good job, just like to drink a few beers and talk to people. He lived alone, around 60. The next day he did the books at the place he worked, went home, got a gun, walked to the end of his street by the river, called the cops and told them where to find him, and put a bullet through his head.

5 minutes ago, ewsieg said:

Vance is someone that knew better.  He made a calculated choice to go his route for power alone.  

I think MTG was your average mom that lived in a red bubble and was outraged by the 'evil' left.  I somewhat wonder if she went to DC with good intentions and is starting to see the 'right' side isn't really working for the average people either.  Add in the fact that she seems to be willing to learn and that has softened a lot of her conspiracy theory talk.

She will continue to vote for republican minded fiscal and social issues though, the left will realize and start ****ting on her again, and it's up in the air on if she can break free of Trump and not get booted from the party.  (booted by getting primaried)

Even when some of them make sense for a while, it doesn't last. Part of the bread, circuses, and rotating villains.

They laugh at us.

Adding; rule number one in a bar is don't piss off your bartender.

Rule number 2 is don't forget to piss before you leave.

The little dive bar I go to has 2 bartenders that could make a sailor blush (when needed) and aren't scared of anyone. I don't know how they do it, and I did it for 13 years. I appreciate them, tip them well, and try to be a sounding block when times are tough. 

I can't imagine what it might be like at midnight. No way I would even do it.

Watching the potential idiots and how they deal with them is the best entertainment going these days. We had a live one the other day. Some lady showed up nobody ever saw before. Next thing you know, she was showing everyone her tongue could go below her chin. No teeth either. Let your imagination run wild how that turned out.

I respect the **** out of these girls.

I spent years in retail. Gas stations, bartending/bowling alley before I moved on. Sometimes the pubic were not easy to get along with - especially a drunken idiot - or someone who thinks the bigger scene they cause will get the job done. I don't do it anymore, but I have to believe it is much more difficult today.

Everyone should be a bartender for a couple of years. Nothing like dealing with drunks.

1 minute ago, Deleterious said:

 

Just what we need, especially with that jackass involved.

Looking at the chart porn, the S&P is back down into the long sell-off candle from 10/10/2025. 9 month chart by day shortened from April 2025 when the last run-up began.