Overlords Investment Conclave [OIC] Recruitment Thread

[LordMortis]

Again, first break of the day... And I peek in when I shouldn't and SPY is down $10. That's pretty close to 3%.

[LawBeefaroni]

I moved several of my market funds into cash and bond funds yesterday. Lucky timing.

Still have more stock exposure than I want when shit starts going south but have been executing the move to cash. The stocks I have are mostly trades anyway, OK if I lose a bit there.


Remember in April and May when a retest of the March lows seemed inevitable and was all the experts were taking about? Now it would seem like the end of the world. How quickly we forget.

[noxiousdog]

I moved several of my market funds into cash and bond funds yesterday. Lucky timing.

Still have more stock exposure than I want when shit starts going south but have been executing the move to cash. The stocks I have are mostly trades anyway, OK if I lose a bit there.


Remember in April and May when a retest of the March lows seemed inevitable and was all the experts were taking about? Now it would seem like the end of the world. How quickly we forget.

If anything has convinced me there is a financial conspiracy, this is it. In 20 years I've never seen such a disconnect from fundamentals.

[LordMortis]

If CPB continues to fall on the the general market status plus the disappointment at "only" being up at 50% on earnings YoY, it's going to be hard to resist and not find money for it. Currently at $48.09. If I had money laying around (I don't do margins), I'd probably put in an order for $46.50 or maybe even $47 and watch if the trend continues, expecting it bounce back to $50 fairly quickly or happily sit on nearly 3% in dividends if doesn't move back.

Also surprised to see it shorted at 10% (from mid August)

[LordMortis]

As covid rises, unemployment will rise. It was a leading indicator 3 months ago, and you're seeing it again.

As long as unemployment is above 10%, broad market earnings will be terrible. Once that season comes around you're going to see a massive (20% ish) sell off.

(More agreement) 20% is the ballpark number I'm watching for. That would translate to around 5,000 points, or Dow 20,000. For me, the hard thing will be knowing when to put the cash back in the market if it doesn't go that low.

3.5% today gets you "down" to DOW 28,000. 3,000 more to do go before we need to start working on that 20%. Today's pullback puts me at about even from when I pulled the vast majority of my retirement plan from only one paycheck ago. It also takes all my covered calls made for my index investments which I didn't pull bit after this conversation back under strike range for the moment.

[Kraken]

As covid rises, unemployment will rise. It was a leading indicator 3 months ago, and you're seeing it again.

As long as unemployment is above 10%, broad market earnings will be terrible. Once that season comes around you're going to see a massive (20% ish) sell off.

(More agreement) 20% is the ballpark number I'm watching for. That would translate to around 5,000 points, or Dow 20,000. For me, the hard thing will be knowing when to put the cash back in the market if it doesn't go that low.

3.5% today gets you "down" to DOW 28,000. 3,000 more to do go before we need to start working on that 20%. Today's pullback puts me at about even from when I pulled the vast majority of my retirement plan from only one paycheck ago. It also takes all my covered calls made for my index investments which I didn't pull bit after this conversation back under strike range for the moment.

The indexes all rose much farther than I expected -- I'd thought they'd go mostly sideways, not up-up-up -- so I'm less confident that Dow 20,000 is the number to wait for. Where did it top out, around 29,000? A 20% correction from there would be around 23,000. Maybe that's my new back-in signal...although I expect volatility to increase as the election draws nearer, so who knows? 20,000 seems unduly pessimistic at the moment.

[LordMortis]

Had a few minutes this morning sneak a peak. TSLA down another 5% pre-market $385. It's FUBAR that I wouldn't get near $1900 on the way up but I'm tempted to find money for $385 on the way down, even knowing I think the stock is really worth about 1/3 that maybe, and that's on faith for it's future. And serves as a reminder to me not to find $800 and pick up a couple of shares.

[Zaxxon]

I bought a few at $402 and a few more at $385.

[LordMortis]

I bought a few at $402 and a few more at $385.

My account does not let me trade pre-market. I won't be bothered to figure that out how to request changes. I don't need to be that tied to moving my money around.

[LawBeefaroni]

Had a few minutes this morning sneak a peak. TSLA down another 5% pre-market $385. It's FUBAR that I wouldn't get near $1900 on the way up but I'm tempted to find money for $385 on the way down, even knowing I think the stock is really worth about 1/3 that maybe, and that's on faith for it's future. And serves as a reminder to me not to find $800 and pick up a couple of shares.

Musk is down $19,000,000,000.00 since Tuesday. Give or take a few hundred million.

[Zaxxon]

Had a few minutes this morning sneak a peak. TSLA down another 5% pre-market $385. It's FUBAR that I wouldn't get near $1900 on the way up but I'm tempted to find money for $385 on the way down, even knowing I think the stock is really worth about 1/3 that maybe, and that's on faith for it's future. And serves as a reminder to me not to find $800 and pick up a couple of shares.

Musk is down $19,000,000,000.00 since Tuesday. Give or take a few hundred million.

But we'd better tax those unrealized gains, right Bernie? smh

[LawBeefaroni]

Brother on the Board.

Elon Musk’s younger brother, Kimbal, appears to have made more than $8 million on Tesla’s stock this week, as he exercised options to buy the stock, two days after he sold those shares at 6.5 times the price he paid for them.

...

On Sept. 1, Kimbal Musk sold 36,375 Tesla shares at a weighted average price of about $482.59, according to a MarketWatch calculation of data from a Form 4 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission filed late Thursday. The filing showed multiple trades made at prices ranging from about $471.33 to about $502.01.
...
Then on Sept. 3, the filing showed that Kimbal Musk acquired 20,375 Tesla shares at a price of $74.17, as part of a trading plan adopted on Feb. 20, 2020.

For the 20,375 shares he sold on Sept. 1 and bought two days later, he made $8.32 million on the trades. If he were to buy back the extra 16,000 shares he sold at current prices, he could make about $1.49 million on the trades.

I love that that's considered a "trade".

Kimbal Musk, who is co-founder of The Kitchen, has been on Tesla’s board of directors since April 2004. He is a member of the board’s compensation, corporate governance and disclosure controls committees

[Pyperkub]

Musk's brother not the only one messing around in tech options. Softbank apparently found a way to trigger NASDAQ hedge algos with huge individual options buys:

It’s a notion that would’ve drawn skepticism in the past: That options buyers could drive extreme rallies in tech companies -- and in turn push benchmark indexes to record highs -- by piling into single-stock contracts. Such side bets, according to conventional wisdom, wouldn’t have enough financial might to move a $30 trillion market.

But after watching call volume explode in Apple Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Facebook Inc. and Tesla Inc. recently, just as the pace of their stock rallies quickened, analysts are starting to embrace the theory. They posit that by acting boldly on a select set of high-flying shares at a time when the professional class is frozen with indecision, traders are able to wield outsize influence. This rush into call contracts, they say, created a bullish feedback loop as dealers were forced to recalibrate hedges...

...Signs options buying was driving tech stocks has provoked rampant theorizing on who or what set the speculation off. SoftBank Group Corp. bought billions of dollars worth of options tied to U.S. tech stocks over the past month, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. Bloomberg reported on Aug. 11 that SoftBank had been targeting wagers of more than $10 billion -- potentially even tens of billions of dollars -- in public stocks using financing structures that can prevent it from showing up in public records as a direct shareholder.

I'm not an options investor, but a fair amount here are.

[LordMortis]

As it all continues to slide, if I had money today might be a good day to be one day in and back out of NKLA, as GM just announced a partnership with them this morning related to the Badger... That is if it's not too late to get in to get out again already. If the open is any indication, it also looks like the day I will be hitting the point of wishing I were more aggressive with pulling money from securities and putting them in to cash.

[LawBeefaroni]

TSLA giving.back another 18% of that split nonsense.

Glad I didn't get greedy on the flips last week. Never want to hold that overnight.

[Zaxxon]

On the bright side, those calls I sold became much more profitable. So... yay?

[LawBeefaroni]

CWH is up 13% on a price target change from JPM. Why the change? Well, a month ago JPM calculated the float at 140M shares. It's actually more like 90M. Target raised from $22 to $40.

Shady as fuck. As usual.

[LordMortis]

It's fascinating to see the Call and Call Interest dry up while the Put and Put Interest go up. I'm not really interested in Puts, they seem like hedge, which then seems even more gambling than I feel like I'm already at.

[Carpet_pissr]

So GM's spike made me do a little digging on my holding. Was curious to see if I've made any money at all during the past 5 years I've had it.

The answer is yes, but barely. The annual return rate, considering today's price, was about 3.5%. If it wasn't for the dividend, it would be about .025% It's really never recovered off its highs of around $45 when I ALMOST sold but didn't pull that trigger.

For reference:
S&P 500 5Y return: 78%
GM 5Y return: 13.5%

[LordMortis]

So GM's spike made me do a little digging on my holding. Was curious to see if I've made any money at all during the past 5 years I've had it.

The answer is yes, but barely. The annual return rate, considering today's price, was about 3.5%. If it wasn't for the dividend, it would be about .025% It's really never recovered off its highs of around $45 when I ALMOST sold but didn't pull that trigger.

For reference:
S&P 500 5Y return: 78%
GM 5Y return: 13.5%

I started investing in 2014 and I started by buying some shares in fossil fuels and Ford. They both proceeded to tank. Lesson learned. Both of those stocks still sit in my portfolio (Until this year I was buy and hold) as a constant reminder to do diligence before buying. Though FGP will finally go this year to counteract some of my gains from trading the violent and overly downmarket from April to July. I have yet to learn how all of that works. (/also wonders why F never spiked when it put 5 billion in to Rivian. Not really. I guess I just wonder why GM is spiking)

[Carpet_pissr]

GM is spiking on news:

Nikola (NKLA) and GM (GM) are teaming up to take on Tesla’s cybertruck.

The electric truck startup announced Tuesday it has selected GM to be its manufacturing parter for its electric pickup truck dubbed the Badger. The Badger will use GM’s widely acclaimed Ultium battery technology. Additionally, Nikola will hand over $2 billion in stock to GM — giving the automaker an 11% stake in the company.

Shares of Nikola and GM rose 40% and 8%, respectively on the tie-up.

The company did begin taking pre-orders for the electric super pickup truck in late June. On paper, the truck stands to be a beast. It’s expected to have 906 horsepower and have a 600-mile range using both battery and hydrogen fuel cells. Nikola has said pricing will start at $60,000 for the electric vehicle version and $90,000 for the one that also includes the hydrogen cell.

The Badger is expected to be unveiled in early December. Production has been set for 2022.

[LordMortis]

My infatuation:

TSLA -88.11 (-21.06%)
And then so far post market another
-8.73 (-2.64%)

ooph. Of course that's still not down to the territory I sold.


The temptation to buy several stocks will be going up soon when I should still be considering reducing what I've got out there. I've got my eye CPB, CSCO, and FTNT but I think before I do that, if I haven't bailed on my indexes I should be looking at increasing them and perhaps increasing my TROW.

[Zaxxon]

I was a buyer after-hours.

[LordMortis]

I was a buyer after-hours.

Even if I seriously wanted to trade pre market or post market my account doesn't let me. I don't know why, Scottrade did before they were bought. No biggie though. I'm already too active. I don't need more incentive to move from investing with an eye on retirement to gambling on investments with an eye on trying to squeak in retirement faster than is reasonable.

[Zaxxon]

If you wanted it, you just have to ask typically. No real requirements unlike some other privileges.

I have it because some stocks that I trade tend to overreact bigly aftermarket (eg TSLA) and I want to be able to take advantage.

[LawBeefaroni]

Tesla pre-split announcement price, split-adjusted, is around $275. I'm not taking either side of the trade right now but if it gets back down there I'll probably get in for some more quickies.

[LordMortis]

I was a buyer after-hours.

And if you are seller now, you are cooking with gas. It looks like generally speaking if you were buyer afterhours and are seller this morning, you are loving life. The amount of money lost and gained in the last 24 hours and week. Crazy. MSFT 232ish last Wed, drops to 202 yesterday and then opens and instantly jumps to 208. There are fortunes to be made and lost here and I'm not smart enough to ride this wave. As tempting as it was to get on the ride yesterday, I'm still sitting out unless this drops more. I've watched my remaining investments dip over 5% in last week and I'm not convinced this isn't the start of a general trend whose peaks and valleys I can't begin to comprehend.

[Zaxxon]

I was a buyer after-hours.

And if you are seller now, you are cooking with gas. It looks like generally speaking if you were buyer afterhours and are seller this morning, you are loving life. The amount of money lost and gained in the last 24 hours and week. Crazy. MSFT 232ish last Wed, drops to 202 yesterday and then opens and instantly jumps to 208. There are fortunes to be made and lost here and I'm not smart enough to ride this wave. As tempting as it was to get on the ride yesterday, I'm still sitting out unless this drops more. I've watched my remaining investments dip over 5% in last week and I'm not convinced this isn't the start of a general trend whose peaks and valleys I can't begin to comprehend.

This is why I like to have the pre-market and after-hours trading capability. I very rarely use it, but there are definitely opportunities fairly frequently.

[LordMortis]

TROW went below 125 this morning so I bought a couple shares. I'm sure it's way too early to cycle more money but I'm stupid and $125 is already below where I opened a position on them. I don't imagine we're half way to the bottom yet and I can imaging that it might take up to two months to get there. I am an example of the sucker people make money off of, doing the exact opposite of what makes good sense. I guess maybe I'm betting on the NFL to take our minds off schools and infections and profit margins. Bad Mortis. Bad bad bad Mortis.

[LawBeefaroni]

You know we're in bubble territory when:

Fraud Prevention Startup NS8 Lays Off Hundreds, CEO Departs Amid SEC Fraud Investigation


Just months after raising over $100 million from venture capital investors, fraud prevention startup NS8 laid off hundreds of employees on Thursday after informing them it was under investigation for fraud.

[LordMortis]

Interesting phenomena, the price of my holdings generally went down a negligible amount today but then the cost of buying back all my November calls went up. While it may be a poor assumption, I can only assume it is about post election confidence, even if I have no idea what it is saying.

[LawBeefaroni]

Interesting phenomena, the price of my holdings generally went down a negligible amount today but then the cost of buying back all my November calls went up. While it may be a poor assumption, I can only assume it is about post election confidence, even if I have no idea what it is saying.

It's not confidence, it's increased volatility (uncertainty). I'd bet puts went up as well.





In other news, TSLA battery day...Elon is quickly losing his shine.



In frightening-if-true news:

The response was striking: the two propose creating a monetary tool that they call recession insurance bonds, which draw on some of the advances in digital payments, which will be wired instantly to Americans.

As Coronado explained the details, Congress would grant the Federal Reserve an additional tool for providing support—say, a percent of GDP [in a lump sum that would be divided equally and distributed] to households in a recession. Recession insurance bonds would be zero-coupon securities, a contingent asset of households that would basically lie in wait. The trigger could be reaching the zero lower bound on interest rates or, as economist Claudia Sahm has proposed, a 0.5 percentage point increase in the unemployment rate. The Fed would then activate the securities and deposit the funds digitally in households’ apps.

...
Essentially, the Fed is proposing creating a hybrid digital legal tender unlike reserves which are stuck within the financial system, and which it can deposit directly into US consumer accounts. In short, as we summarized "The Fed Is Planning To Send Money Directly To Americans In The Next Crisis", something we reminded readers of on Monday.

...

But wait it gets better, because in launching digital cash, the Fed would then be able to scrap "anonymous" physical currency entirely, and track every single banknote from its "creation" all though the various transactions that take place during its lifetime. And, eventually, the Fed could remotely "destroy" said digital currency when it so decides. Oh, and in the process the Fed would effectively disintermediate commercial banks, as it would both provide loans to US consumers and directly deposit funds into their accounts, effectively making the entire traditional banking system obsolete

[LordMortis]

In other other news S&P dips another 2% today. I assume it still has a long way to go, but another 4% or so and I'll probably start hedging against being wrong about the bottom and start putting more money in. What's left of my portfolio is taking the pain. I mentioned in another thread yesterday that I'm annoyed at my 401K, having moved it to a money market, the closest thing to a no loss guarantee for was estimated at .8% interest -.6% management fees has actually lost .24% in a month and a half. There is no option to say "put my money in a mattress and stop collecting management fees"

[LawBeefaroni]

I mentioned in another thread yesterday that I'm annoyed at my 401K, having moved it to a money market, the closest thing to a no loss guarantee for was estimated at .8% interest -.6% management fees has actually lost .24% in a month and a half. There is no option to say "put my money in a mattress and stop collecting management fees"

I use FDRXX in the 401k/403b. Low yield bit it's higher than the expense ratio so it always kicks off a very small dividend each month. NAV is always $1.00.

[LordMortis]

At the risk of being premature, thank you LB. I bought 100 shares of AOUT at $13.54 after learning a bit about them and watching them and then immediately sold a November 20 $15 call for $.94 bringing the price down to $12.50 plus taxes on the call. Things are looking very strong to sell right now and if they don't, I'm not likely to be heartbroken. Nothing else you talked about were things I felt I understood enough or could warrant but I'm always happen to listen.

[LawBeefaroni]

I bought more AOUT. Low volume is frustrating but I think it also means potential room. Has to start trading more than 250K shares a day, right?


Also currently trading momentum in CRON and WKHS.

I bought a bunch of BYND and made some money but happened to exit right before the big run. I think like $155. The next day it was up 10% and now it's at $194. Had better luck timing DKNG. Looking for rentry in the mid $40s if it happens.

[LawBeefaroni]

Also, been buying DUK and GAB once or twice a week. Little chunks, 10x DUK and 100x GAB, to build up some dividend stocks. Still in F but no divvy.

[LordMortis]

CRON + price to enter + option price looks interesting. Let me get back to you on that if I can wrap my head around what they do and company behind it. The other stuff is either a bit too much or a bit out of my comfort zone for grasping.

It's not good that my CDs keep maturing but there easy to get back in to CDs aren't available. It gives me an inflated sense of how much I can "play" with. (I really wish my credit union made CDs as easy as TD Ameritrade does to broker them) I may have to start looking at getting a better grasp for buying bonds on the secondary market, even as they pay just about nothing. I keep trying to digest what YTW (or YTM) really means after the lump in Accrued Interest costs. It seems like as close to 0% as some of these are paying, I could come out in the negative by not only paying them more than the cost of the bond for nearly 0% but also paying them for accrued interest and then having to pay taxes on the original interest rate.

[xwraith]

I'm still bullish on AMD and recently had exited all of my positions (mostly because they were covered calls that all got overrun, and got exercised). So profitable, but capped profit.

Sold Dec 18 AMD 80 Put (Cash Covered) -- I couldn't resist. If stock goes up I'm looking at a roughly 6-7% ROI and I think < $80 is a good price
Bought AMD stock when it dropped below 80 the other day. -- I suspect another pop in the future. If there is a run up will hold and maybe sell calls against it if I think it has hit its peak. Or perhaps sell when I've seen a good profit and await for the inevitable pull back.

[Carpet_pissr]

Also, been buying DUK and GAB once or twice a week. Little chunks, 10x DUK and 100x GAB, to build up some dividend stocks. Still in F but no divvy.

I have sold my DUK recently only because I am looking WAY down the road, and I don't know how traditional power companies are going to cope with the energy transition that is happening, and accelerating. Sold F partly due to the same reason. I just think it will be very difficult for such traditional companies, so set in their ways, to pivot very well when major industry disruptions happen.

Granted, it is a REAL slow burn, but it's happening, and I am not confident that either company will be doing better than they are under the current traditional energy market.

That's also very likely an overly simplistic take on a very complicated problem/process, especially considering it from an investing angle.