Octopus Overlords

And speaking of me not being smart, if CVS dips below 100, I'll be tempted to over extend myself and pick a few shares.

LordMortis wrote:If there's no voodoo to defer taxes on a non retirement account then I'm content to let my dividends build until my next investment window. The fees I avoid with DRIP (if Scottstrade lets me do that fee free) are fees that I'd pay for the new investments anyway.

It's probably not the wise thing to do but the compounding of my Dividends from DRIP vs my investment windows would be tiny anyway and this gives me more entertainment value. It feels like I'm buying more when a quarter's worth of dividends piles up and I add it to my new investment and I get a moment of satisfaction to get those extra 3 or 4 shares.

DRIP is almost always free. However, my personal opinion is that I probably have a better investment idea than reinvesting in the company that threw off the dividends. This would not be true of a DVY, SPY, DIA etc.

noxiousdog wrote:

LordMortis wrote:If there's no voodoo to defer taxes on a non retirement account then I'm content to let my dividends build until my next investment window. The fees I avoid with DRIP (if Scottstrade lets me do that fee free) are fees that I'd pay for the new investments anyway.

It's probably not the wise thing to do but the compounding of my Dividends from DRIP vs my investment windows would be tiny anyway and this gives me more entertainment value. It feels like I'm buying more when a quarter's worth of dividends piles up and I add it to my new investment and I get a moment of satisfaction to get those extra 3 or 4 shares.

DRIP is almost always free. However, my personal opinion is that I probably have a better investment idea than reinvesting in the company that threw off the dividends. This would not be true of a DVY, SPY, DIA etc.

You can compare stocks to SPY/QQQQ/etc. here.

DUK v Q is a fun one. But something like DIS v SPY is more telling.

LawBeefaroni wrote:

noxiousdog wrote:

LordMortis wrote:If there's no voodoo to defer taxes on a non retirement account then I'm content to let my dividends build until my next investment window. The fees I avoid with DRIP (if Scottstrade lets me do that fee free) are fees that I'd pay for the new investments anyway.

It's probably not the wise thing to do but the compounding of my Dividends from DRIP vs my investment windows would be tiny anyway and this gives me more entertainment value. It feels like I'm buying more when a quarter's worth of dividends piles up and I add it to my new investment and I get a moment of satisfaction to get those extra 3 or 4 shares.

DRIP is almost always free. However, my personal opinion is that I probably have a better investment idea than reinvesting in the company that threw off the dividends. This would not be true of a DVY, SPY, DIA etc.

You can compare stocks to SPY/QQQQ/etc. here.

DUK v Q is a fun one. But something like DIS v SPY is more telling.

Much easier to pick DIS in hind sight.

noxiousdog wrote:

LawBeefaroni wrote:

noxiousdog wrote:

LordMortis wrote:If there's no voodoo to defer taxes on a non retirement account then I'm content to let my dividends build until my next investment window. The fees I avoid with DRIP (if Scottstrade lets me do that fee free) are fees that I'd pay for the new investments anyway.

It's probably not the wise thing to do but the compounding of my Dividends from DRIP vs my investment windows would be tiny anyway and this gives me more entertainment value. It feels like I'm buying more when a quarter's worth of dividends piles up and I add it to my new investment and I get a moment of satisfaction to get those extra 3 or 4 shares.

DRIP is almost always free. However, my personal opinion is that I probably have a better investment idea than reinvesting in the company that threw off the dividends. This would not be true of a DVY, SPY, DIA etc.

You can compare stocks to SPY/QQQQ/etc. here.

DUK v Q is a fun one. But something like DIS v SPY is more telling.

Much easier to pick DIS in hind sight.

Neat thing is you can plug in any stock you want and see the results.

The point is it's not always an obvious choice to go with an index.







In other news, I voted my F shares. I know voting against William Clay Ford Jr. won't change a thing, and I don't really want him off the board. I'm just a Lions fan.

AMD doing me some favors today.


Edit: sold the July 1.5 calls. Bought at 1.10, sold at 1.89. A nice result on some speculative calls I've had for a Month or so. . Keeping all my shares for now.

NE doing OK too.

LawBeefaroni wrote:AMD doing me some favors today.

I've been up above my starting funding all week! That's a record for me. I'd be doing phenomenally well, even having started at a marked peak we haven't really surpassed... if I weren't wooed by FGP's dividend right before the Oil/energy crash. I could see the crash coming but I figured my investment would be isolated because I was investing in propane, not oil. I could see warming coming but I figured it wouldn't be that big of an effect. What I didn't see coming was releasing millions of more shares to finance acquisitions of other propane companies concurrent with warming and the energy crash. My holdings in FGP have killed me in what has otherwise been me timing my investments well or with luck. I'm still down about 30% from my combined purchase price and have probably made back about 15% in dividends.

My only other holdings currently in the red are SPY and F and both of them have paid dividends that counteract their being in the red.

If I had more money to throw away, I'd be moving along nicely toward the retirement track, though I imagine these last two weeks are setting us up for a Whoops! Nevermind. Unless some very pretty opportunities come up, causing me to set back my savings plan, I am not likely to have more money to put away until October, so an upward trending or crazy up and down market between now and then would be a good thing.

LawBeefaroni wrote:AMD doing me some favors today.


Edit: sold the July 1.5 calls. Bought at 1.10, sold at 1.89. A nice result on some speculative calls I've had for a Month or so. . Keeping all my shares for now.

NE doing OK too.

Well, AMD closed at 3.99 so my calls would have gone for at least 2.5 by the end of the day. Ah well. 1.89 was still nice. Still have the shares.

It's Miller Time.

A week's worth of up wiped in a day... but CVS took the hit bad enough that I'm making my purchase today. That's going to set me back financially for a while.

Closed out some TSLA covered calls I had written at a 90% and 50% return. I'm guessing next week's ER won't be anything to write home about, but wanted to nix my exposure to a big rise in case they pull a rabbit out of the hat. Can't complain about those returns, though.

I'm too ascared to do calls and options and I don't know what else. I just keep putting money in hoping to forget about and dreaming of retirement.

I'm not sure how much money I would have to have feel comfortable playing with some of it. I am sure I'll need a lot more education in how it all works than I do right now, and that's after fawning over lawbeerfaroni and reading three books on the whole thing. Maybe one day.

LordMortis wrote:I'm too ascared to do calls and options and I don't know what else. I just keep putting money in hoping to forget about and dreaming of retirement.

Being ascared of calls and options is the correct default state of being. My options play is a tiny, tiny part of what I have invested. Hell, individual stocks are a tiny part of what I have invested. I largely use the famous index card method. I've just been so fanatical about following Tesla for years now that I'm fairly comfortable putting a little money behind options bets.

LordMortis wrote:A week's worth of up wiped in a day... but CVS took the hit bad enough that I'm making my purchase today. That's going to set me back financially for a while.

While everything else is dropping CVS is going up like crazy. It's up over 4% from where I bought. Makes me want to just dump it and grab something that's tumbling like VZ.

I won't do this and then I will be sad when CVS comes back down to earth and VZ levels off on the up.

/wishes he had play money to play with.

LordMortis wrote:

LordMortis wrote:A week's worth of up wiped in a day... but CVS took the hit bad enough that I'm making my purchase today. That's going to set me back financially for a while.

While everything else is dropping CVS is going up like crazy. It's up over 4% from where I bought. Makes me want to just dump it and grab something that's tumbling like VZ.

I won't do this and then I will be sad when CVS comes back down to earth and VZ levels off on the up.

/wishes he had play money to play with.

According to the newsletter I subscribe to (IQ Trends), CVS is historically overvalued when it's yield is 0.6% and that's when you should sell. It is undervalued when the yield is > 1.4%.

noxiousdog wrote:According to the newsletter I subscribe to (IQ Trends), CVS is historically overvalued when it's yield is 0.6% and that's when you should sell. It is undervalued when the yield is > 1.4%.

I need to get smarter.

I have no intention of selling. I just keep slowly buying with the intention of retiring one day or leaving a bunch of assorted equity shares to my nieces and nephews after I die on the job.

But damned it's tempting to play by feelings. CVS may generally rise but this is a bump and selling after making 4+% in two days would just give me good gambling feels. Especially while I have my eye on VZ (with no money to throw at it) and VZ is in a pit while CVS is in a bump.

LordMortis wrote:I'm too ascared to do calls and options and I don't know what else. I just keep putting money in hoping to forget about and dreaming of retirement.

I'm not sure how much money I would have to have feel comfortable playing with some of it. I am sure I'll need a lot more education in how it all works than I do right now, and that's after fawning over lawbeerfaroni and reading three books on the whole thing. Maybe one day.

With covered calls, worst case is that you have to sell stock you own at the price of the option. If you write the call at a strike price higher than you bought, the only downside is limiting your profit. Granted you need to own 100 shares of the underlying stock for each covered call option you write but it's a decent way to make some money off shares you hold with the just the aforementioned risk of selling the shares if the option closes above the option strike.

Have not had much time due to work but my BBRY nibble filled. 1 week put play worked.


Tempted to make a short-term bet on oil but haven't yet.

LawBeefaroni wrote:Have not had much time due to work but my BBRY nibble filled. 1 week put play worked.

Good for you, I think?

Market seems to be in a steady climb. It's a good time to rebuild my savings. I over extended myself on perceived opportunities between January and April and while everything is up, I look crazy smart for doing so. Especially when comparing that my indiscriminate investing from before and to my retirement, which seems to be dipping even as the tide is raising all boats. I hate my 401k and the choices I am given and the commissions they get for doing nothing and yet I have it maxed so I can defer taxes until after retirement.

If feels like it's almost time for a major dip, where I pull my hair out and come here and whine but the last few months have been good to me short term and I won at the Kentucky Derby to boot!

Edit:

Also, looking at the rise and fall of Blackberry, I need to remind myself about which stocks are long term stocks and which ones are not and that it will be awhile until invest in any not so long term stocks.

LordMortis wrote:

Pyperkub wrote:$623/share last I checked in after hours trading.

Can someone explain Amazon to me? They earned $.70 per $600 share this quarter. How much more do we expect Amazon to grow?

Amazon breaks the $700/share level. A couple of articles:

The Best Technology Stocks in 4 Charts:

RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT
If we move past an argument about whether or not Amazon’s (NASDAQ:AMZN) stock price has gotten ahead of itself, we can more easily digest the reality that the firm has by far the greatest reach into almost all of the themes driving technology’s future.

“
One of the most surprising facts in the capital markets today is that Amazon spends more on research and development (R&D) than any company in any sector.
”

Amazon breaks $700/share, is $1,000/share in reach?

analysts at Bernstein said the stock is undervalued and could soar by nearly 50% to $1,000 within the next year.

The bank raised its 12-month price target on the e-commerce giant to $1,000 from $770, making it one of the most bullish brokerages on Amazon’s shares. ...

...Bernstein, which has an outperform rating on Amazon’s shares, lifted its fiscal 2016 and 2017 earnings per share estimates by several dollars on Tuesday, citing efforts by Amazon to reduce expenses and expectations that Amazon Web Services contributes $10 billion in incremental revenues over the next two years. It now expects 2016 EPS of $10.05, versus a previous estimate of $7.88, and 2017 EPS of $17.56, compared with an earlier estimate of $12.97. The consensus estimate is currently calling for earnings of $5.45 and $9.86, respectively, according to FactSet.

This, in turn, is expected to contribute favorably to profit margins, says Kirjner. Bernstein estimates that gross margins could reach 36.41% in 2016 and 39.18% in 2017, higher than the current consensus estimates of 34.83% and 36.26%, respectively, as Amazon shifts to higher-margin businesses, such as AWS, Marketplace and Fulfillment by Amazon.

I noticed that today after Lawbeef's post and thinking about tech based stocks. And I was at what in and out would have done since our last talk about this.

LawBeefaroni wrote:
Tempted to make a short-term bet on oil but haven't yet.

Did gold instead, same idea, it worked.

GG calls.

LordMortis wrote:
Good for you, I think?

Want to say I bought at 1.13 and sold at 1.46.

I'm sitting on AMZN for a looooong time this time....analysts be damned...they've generally been wrong about Amazon since it's IPO. AWS is a monster.

It's only 8% of my portfolio currently, and I have a note to myself to check it again when it hits $1,000.

Carpet_pissr wrote:I'm sitting on AMZN for a looooong time this time....analysts be damned...they've generally been wrong about Amazon since it's IPO.

Analysts are almost as bad as psychics. Of course if you bought when they were wrong in 1999, you were likely underwater for 10 years.

If it weren't for AWS, Amazon would be fools gold. I don't think they'll ever be able to make enough money to justify their share price via retail.

AWS though, is a completely different beast. That's extremely profitable, growing, a superior product with quality support, and cost effective for buyers.

Math: Cloud computing is expected to be a 300 billion dollar business by 2018. Amazon has 35% market share and profit margins of 28% and rising. That's roughly 30 billion worth of profit by 2018. Their market cap today is $330 billion, which is easily justified, imo.

I still have both Amazon and Google on my radar but they are low on my list. I increase my holding in a major index between any individual securities purchase and I have my eye on Verizon next, so at the minimum I'd be something like purchase

SPY
VZ
VT
AMZN

I am not likely to make four more purchases in 2016. I just don't have that kind of money and I'm still rebuilding a savings that I overtaxed from a market that was full of opportunity earlier this year.

Add that May paychecks are going to pay for medical, octocon, and a new dishwasher and July checks will go to property taxes, and half of September's checks will go to Auto Insurance and I might not even buy more SPY before the end of the year.

I was so meant to be independently wealthy. I got stuck in the wrong life.

noxiousdog wrote:If it weren't for AWS, Amazon would be fools gold. I don't think they'll ever be able to make enough money to justify their share price via retail.

You don't place any value on the Kindle-verse?
Amazon Prime? (present and future)
The Amazon platform itself, and its content?
Kindle hardware probably makes very little if anything, but the content bought for Kindles?

Carpet_pissr wrote:

noxiousdog wrote:If it weren't for AWS, Amazon would be fools gold. I don't think they'll ever be able to make enough money to justify their share price via retail.

You don't place any value on the Kindle-verse?
Amazon Prime? (present and future)
The Amazon platform itself, and its content?
Kindle hardware probably makes very little if anything, but the content bought for Kindles?

I'm sure there's some, but not enough to move the needle. I think itunes and the Apple store are a much more robust platform and it doesn't contribute much to Apple.

Regardless, what I'm saying is I'm sure the rest of Amazon is worth something... Call it a margin of safety. AWS, though, is a legit $300 billion business.

Great quote from a Business Insider article in January:

"Here is how Amazon actually works: As long as the company can grow its revenues, it can spend any profit it makes on new lines of business that throw off more revenues. Those revenues may also be profitable, and those profits can in turn be immediately spent again on more growth. By eschewing profits, the company can also offer the lowest prices possible (which is why consumers are so loyal to it). Some parts of the company are profitable and fuel growth in others.

So it doesn't matter if Amazon never makes a dime. In fact, Amazon's history clearly shows that profits are a secondary concern to revenues."

Love it...and amazing that even TODAY, so many analysts just don't get it and keep "hoping" that Amazon is now going to suddenly turn into a big profit, big margin company so they can get a proper handle on it.

Carpet_pissr wrote:Great quote from a Business Insider article in January:

"Here is how Amazon actually works: As long as the company can grow its revenues, it can spend any profit it makes on new lines of business that throw off more revenues. Those revenues may also be profitable, and those profits can in turn be immediately spent again on more growth. By eschewing profits, the company can also offer the lowest prices possible (which is why consumers are so loyal to it). Some parts of the company are profitable and fuel growth in others.

So it doesn't matter if Amazon never makes a dime. In fact, Amazon's history clearly shows that profits are a secondary concern to revenues."

Love it...and amazing that even TODAY, so many analysts just don't get it and keep "hoping" that Amazon is now going to suddenly turn into a big profit, big margin company so they can get a proper handle on it.

That's the dumbest thing I've ever read, but I think that was your point.

Completely out of ideas today. Sucks because I had a free hour this morning. I guess it's one of those no-called-strike days.

Bills are too high. It's been looking like we're heading in the right direction for me increase my SPY but Chicago, and medical, and dishwasher, and computer make that an impossible dream even if it falls below 200.

Took a shot at HD. Doesn't seem deserving of the recent punishment.

I've been wanting into Lowes for a while but money is not an infinite resource.

Really, I should be look at Menard's instead. They seem to be growing like crazy and everybody loves them. They seem to be cheap that the expense of quality but no one seems to care and this has been going on for years.

Edit: Apparently Menard's is privately held. I guess that explains why I haven't been watching them. Yeah. That's why. That's the ticket.

For shits and giggles I just placed my first ever limit order. I'm looking for 1400 shares of SSMLF based on another thread. I just potentially gave away $200 but I will have learned how to place limit orders and if it goes through I get something fun to watch $200.

I should cross post this in the spend $100 or more thread.

Edit: Nope. My order was not fulfilled but that was fun. I may need to put together a gambling budget and try again.

LordMortis wrote:For shits and giggles I just placed my first ever limit order. I'm looking for 1400 shares of SSMLF based on another thread. I just potentially gave away $200 but I will have learned how to place limit orders and if it goes through I get something fun to watch $200.

I should cross post this in the spend $100 or more thread.

Edit: Nope. My order was not fulfilled but that was fun. I may need to put together a gambling budget and try again.

Get a paper trading account. Your broker should offer one. Ameritrade's is great with TOS. It's the only way I "trade" Forex.

Just realized after adding some more GM recently, that slightly more than 15% of my portfolio is in automakers (the other one is F). Should probably do some balancing there considering they are cyclicals. Question is "what part of the cycle are we in currently?"

I actually feel very comfortable holding both of those companies, for a long time, just not sure it's the smart play to be that overweighted in one sector.

LawBeefaroni wrote:Get a paper trading account. Your broker should offer one. Ameritrade's is great with TOS. It's the only way I "trade" Forex.

More things to look up.

I'm about 10% on Ford, I think. It doesn't bother me, mainly because I don't have a lot of money in the market outside of 401k, which I don't count as existing. There's only so much you can do with a pittance. I chose Ford for income generation. They cyclical market won't affect me unless it cycles into a recession and they stop paying dividends. I don't expect the stock to grow in value and after my initial feet wetting during the highest mark the market was ever at, I have only increased my holdings during dips.

Never did look it up but learned more new stuff today. Initially I was going to buy $200 worth of SSMLF from my IRA, just because and I wanted to learn how it works and I had $200 in dividends waiting to be tied into securities at another time.

Today I decided that's a dangerous path so I deposited $200 of "play" money into scoottrade and tried to buy SSMLF again but I discovered that I can't buy $.10 stocks (or any stock under $3, apparently) until my deposit is "released". Right now it is "restricted."

That kinda sucks. I don't want to have to move money into scottrade and let it sit idle, waiting for the the right opportunity to invest it. Idle money is for my money market, that I can grab for any emergency at any time.

My funds have been released. Now SSMLF is up from $.11 to $.12. I put in the order for $.12. We'll see what happens.

LordMortis wrote:And speaking of me not being smart, if CVS dips below 100, I'll be tempted to over extend myself and pick a few shares.

And yeah, CVS has been taking a beating for reasons I don't think I understand. I'm down about 10% since late April, where it seems like it was nearing a low point. If I had money to throw, I'd be doubling down right about now but I won't have money to throw, possibly for the rest of the year at the rate I'm spending money.