Screwball

Again NO SPOILERS I will only say this was a great read. This kinda connects. My neighbor who I grew up who was a few years older than me went in the Navy. Maybe Nam years, not sure. Out of the Navy he went to work as a merchant marine on the great lakes until he retired. He now lives in Huron, Ohio. His sister still lives in the hood about 2 blocks away. I told her I would love to see him (we have stories - been 30-40 years) and she brought him down to my party garage last year one day. Only for an hour, but it was a hoot. Next year I'm gonna get her to do it again, and I want to ask him about what it was like out there on the lakes. I'm sure he sailed it all, but it would have been after the Fitz. I wouldn't get in a row boat.

Example; the last big ticker I worked for had Vanguard. I liked them, Jack Bogle, and their thesis on investing. The problem was, I could only change it every 3 months. I was probably one of few who cared about that. If you didn't change your positions each quarter, they would put it all in their stock. Don't want that. Some of the guys there were buying the snot out of our stock because it was going up like a rocket. While they where doing this, and you did your homework, the top 10 executives who must report buy/sell had been selling the **** out of it. Ding, ding, ding. In March when they reported earning the stock shot up over $200 bucks. A month later it hit $211. Everybody was happy as a bunch of pigs in the mud. Until they weren't. Mid July, it was $142.

This is where we disagree. Timing is everything. The math is indisputable. Wall Street banks make billions of dollars because of timing the markets every quarter proven by their earnings release. That said, that doesn't necessarily apply to us. Most of us don't have the ability to manage the money we contribute to our retirement account, whatever flavor they may be, and take advantage of the market if what they they call "fiduciary duty" was what it should be. The guy you are sitting across the table at your local Edward Jones spent $75 to pass a test and now gives you lifetime investment advice. How ****ed up is that? Nothing in the world is more corrupt that Wall Street and the money behind them. It's a dog eat dog world and we are wearing dogbone underwear.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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.

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.