Octopus Overlords

OK at the end of the month, if my taxes are done and I don't owe, think I'm ready to tuck some more money away but I'm ascrared of fuckery right now. I think fuckery has deflated things a bit to where I'd like the price point but fuckery doesn't look like it's going to stop. Thoughts?

For reference, the next bit I am likely to tuck away will be in to VTI. I'm still not comfortable dipping back in to individual securities and my portfolio reminds why every day.

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Feb 22, 2018 11:37 am

LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Feb 21, 2018 6:29 pm Bought in AMZN on 9/6/2017. Looking at that chart, I should really sell.

You really make sell decisions without looking at earnings?

I make sell decisions not solely based in earnings. Occasionally I'll take profits and regroup. Like I said, chart made me want to sell. Other factors, including earnings, kept me in.

So far this year my "fire and forget" index amd mutual funds are up around 2% and my actively managed stocks are up around 18%. Granted the funds make up 70% of my investments.


I'm mentioned my dad's account earlier. He was having trouble sleeping worrying about it so I slowly moved him to all cash. With a few exceptions, it saved him at least 10% of total value. And with the pile of cash, I'm able to do some quick trades. OSTK from $43 to $47 in a few days got him his distribution money 6 months. He's sleeping ok now.


There is a lot of wisdom in buy and hold. But it's not one-size-fits-all nor is it ideal in every climate.

Funny story about AMZN. I was out last weekend and met up with a friend that likes to talk stocks. He recalled how he got into amazon around $500 or something a few years ago. It was touching $700 and he was looking to buy. Back then I told him in no uncertain terms (this was undoubtedly at the bar after several drinks) that it was going to go back below $500 and to buy then. I didn't know it, but right there he put in a huge gtc buy order at like $475. He got filled like 2 months later.

Let's hope he's still holding!

Carpet_pissr wrote: Fri Mar 23, 2018 10:39 am Let's hope he's still holding!

He is. Blames me for his AMZN heaviness.

Getting tempted to move money I shouldn't move (aka future car money and cushion) into the market. It's brutal.

Seeing the volatility since the high of January is a convincing argument for me to leave the cash in my Roth IRA where it is.

You are probably right but I'm not sure I'll listen We'll see. I get impatient and things get tempting, like I'm about to miss out and then get stuck riding in a peak. I believe my Portfolio is easily at seven or eight month low two month after being at an all time high but I can't tell because TDAmeritrade doesn't let me track my portfolio like Scottrade did (or it doesn't that I have yet to be able to figure out)

Dammit, I've been waiting for a chance to add to my AMZN shares with the recent market drop, and it just is not happening (it is, but not enough to make me comfortable). Shares are correlating more or less with the S&P (not in %, but in direction at least). I'm hesitant to set an arbitrary "buy more" share price, but maybe that's what I need to do. Fine. It's $1,300.

Well, I hit the "jackpot" today as a stock that I've been shorting (CGI) halted trading today in preparation for delisting.

Am curious to see if they just go the pink sheet route, or go totally bankrupt and zero out. Either way, I should profit nicely off this one.

Filthy shorts.

Well, at least if the company is going belly up for reasons that have nothing to do with dirty shorts driving the stock price into the ground just because they can, then well done for you.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Nah, it has to do with the company being really shady with its financials. This is the 2nd time I've profited off their shenanigans.

Good for you. I'm not brave or wealthy or smart enough to do options or shorts. OtOH, I do have enough tucked away where I'm ready to dip more into one of my indexes but this "volatility" has me ascared. So I guess I'ma just grow my "cash portfolio" for now. We'll see how impatient I get before I expand my VTI and feel like I'm getting burned for buying at the worst time possible.

pr0ner wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:40 pm Nah, it has to do with the company being really shady with its financials. This is the 2nd time I've profited off their shenanigans.

Really shady? Or just accused of being shady? (If really shade, F them)

One of my stocks has been under brutal assault by shorts of late, fueled by an article accusing the company of misleading investors. Sorry, that he *feels* that they are misleading investors, because his analysis of data that he doesn't have access to makes him think that Johnson & Johnson is lying.

I want to stab out his eyes.

LordMortis wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:27 amGood for you. I'm not brave or wealthy or smart enough to do options or shorts. OtOH, I do have enough tucked away where I'm ready to dip more into one of my indexes but this "volatility" has me ascared. So I guess I'ma just grow my "cash portfolio" for now. We'll see how impatient I get before I expand my VTI and feel like I'm getting burned for buying at the worst time possible.

I am in no way implying that VTI has hit a floor - but if you are looking to buy and hold for at least a few years, I feel like VTI is offering you a free gain of $15 or so per share right now. We know that it will eventually exceed it's high. Or we're all fuct anyways.

Buying at today's discount wouldn't be the worst decision you could make. I'm contemplating it myself, although the money I am looking at has a much shorter time horizon, which will probably cause me to keep it liquid for flexibility to do some other things.

RunningMn9 wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:31 am

LordMortis wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:27 amGood for you. I'm not brave or wealthy or smart enough to do options or shorts. OtOH, I do have enough tucked away where I'm ready to dip more into one of my indexes but this "volatility" has me ascared. So I guess I'ma just grow my "cash portfolio" for now. We'll see how impatient I get before I expand my VTI and feel like I'm getting burned for buying at the worst time possible.

I am in no way implying that VTI has hit a floor - but if you are looking to buy and hold for at least a few years, I feel like VTI is offering you a free gain of $15 or so per share right now. We know that it will eventually exceed it's high. Or we're all fuct anyways.

Buying at today's discount wouldn't be the worst decision you could make. I'm contemplating it myself, although the money I am looking at has a much shorter time horizon, which will probably cause me to keep it liquid for flexibility to do some other things.

As much as I look every day. Once I put money in, I pretend it doesn't exist any more. Short of unemployment, it won't be touched again for what I hope is at least five years, probably longer. Five years is when I think I will be able to do my first realistic evaluation for a retirement timeline.

My thought is also "if it's fuct, the we're all fuct" but at the same time my cushion gets softer the longer I hold off with 00.2% interest whose principle is FDIC insured.

RunningMn9 wrote: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:28 am

pr0ner wrote: Tue Apr 03, 2018 9:40 pm Nah, it has to do with the company being really shady with its financials. This is the 2nd time I've profited off their shenanigans.

Really shady? Or just accused of being shady? (If really shade, F them)

Really shady. As in accounting errors dating back to 2014, and not releasing earnings since last year when an auditor bailed on them because their financial statements at the time were unreliable.

Then well done in profiting off of their lies.

There is a really good AMZN discussion over on The Motley Fool

The first post by SteveStox (linked above) is a very good bear argument with bull arguments from HowardRoark in this one. Later, Goofyhoofy sums up my thoughts here.

Due to the size of the thread and the complexity, it would be hard to summarize in a few quotes.

If you are not familiar with the Motley Fool format, you can also click the "whole thread" button inside a post and see the full discussion.

noxiousdog wrote:There is a really good AMZN discussion over on The Motley Fool

The first post by SteveStox (linked above) is a very good bear argument with bull arguments from HowardRoark in this one. Later, Goofyhoofy sums up my thoughts here.

Due to the size of the thread and the complexity, it would be hard to summarize in a few quotes.

If you are not familiar with the Motley Fool format, you can also click the "whole thread" button inside a post and see the full discussion.

I read the whole thread. Good stuff, thanks for posting.

I will post just the leading ‘salvo’, if you will, just because it’s so ridiculous:
———————————————-
Amazon's current market capitalization of $761 billion dollars is now equal to the
combined market caps of Wal-Mart, Costco, CVS, Walgreens, TJ Maxx, Target, Best Buy,
and 18 other major retailers included in the table below (data courtesy of Morningstar):

Mkt 2017 2017
Company Cap(B) Sales($B) EPS ($B)
------------------------------------------------------
Amazon AMZN 761 177.9 3.0
Wal-Mart WMT 264 485.9 13.6
Costco COST 83 129.0 2.7
CVS Health Corp CVS 70 184.8 6.6
Walgreens Boots WBA 70 118.2 4.1
TJ Maxx TJX 52 33.2 2.3
Target TGT 38 69.5 2.7
Dollar General DG 24 22.0 1.3
Dollar Tree DLTR 22 20.7 0.9
Best Buy BBY 21 39.4 1.2
Kroger KR 21 115.3 2.0
QVC Group QVCA 19 10.4 1.2
AutoZone AZO 18 10.9 1.3
Kohl's KSS 10 18.7 0.6
Burlington BURL 9 5.6 0.2
Advance Auto Parts AAP 9 9.4 0.5
Macy's M 9 25.8 0.6
Wayfair W 8 4.7 -0.2
Ollie's OLLI 4 0.9 0.1
Casey's General CASY 4 7.5 0.2
Dick's Sporting DKS 3.5 7.9 0.3
Etsy ETSY 3.35 0.4 0.1
PriceSmart PSMT 2 3.0 0.1
JC Penney JCP 1 12.6 0.0
Supervalue SVU 0.555 12.5 0.7
Sears Holding SHLD 0.249 22.1 -2.2
-----------------------------------------------------
Total $1,548.2 $43.7
Total - y-o-y growth 4.9% 4.1%
-----------------------------------------------------
Total Excluding Amazon $1,370.4 $40.6
Total - y-o-y growth excl Amazon 2.3% 2.6%


To give you a perspective of how remarkable this "equivalence" is, in 2017 alone this
non-Amazon group of companies generated a combined $40.6 billion of net income on $1.37
trillion in sales through the operation of their 80,799 retail locations
globally and the efforts of their 5.339 million employees.
——————————

Carpet_pissr wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 9:24 am I will post just the leading ‘salvo’, if you will, just because it’s so ridiculous:

Why do you think it's ridiculous?

edit: never mind. I think you are talking about Amazon, not the post.

Correct. The numbers are astounding when laid out that way, relative to other companies.

If you take away the market cap attributable to AWS, the cap is roughly the same as WMT.

Not that the valuation isn't crazy but to be fair, you have to view it as 45% tech (AWS) and 55% retail.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:40 am If you take away the market cap attributable to AWS, the cap is roughly the same as WMT.

I think a $500 billion market cap for AWS is a little extreme. Most estimates put it around $200 billion.

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 11:50 am

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 10:40 am If you take away the market cap attributable to AWS, the cap is roughly the same as WMT.

I think a $500 billion market cap for AWS is a little extreme. Most estimates put it around $200 billion.

Amazon NA is around 42%, AWS is around 44%, if you believe Trefis. My math was off but ANA is still around $320B by their reckoning. If you throw in international retail and cash, everything minus AWS is around $430B. So it's like the top three on the list, not all 18.

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 11:50 am Most estimates put it around $200 billion.

Last year. This year over $250B. And that's estimated intrinsic value, not market cap value. If you believe the $250B number, it's saying that AMZN is around 25% overpriced (on the AWS side).

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:42 pm

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 11:50 am Most estimates put it around $200 billion.

Last year. This year over $250B. And that's estimated intrinsic value, not market cap value. If you believe the $250B number, it's saying that AMZN is around 25% overpriced (on the AWS side).

Intrinsic value is what we are talking about. You can't measure market cap of a part of a business other than wild speculation.

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:53 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:42 pm

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 11:50 am Most estimates put it around $200 billion.

Last year. This year over $250B. And that's estimated intrinsic value, not market cap value. If you believe the $250B number, it's saying that AMZN is around 25% overpriced (on the AWS side).

Intrinsic value is what we are talking about. You can't measure market cap of a part of a business other than wild speculation.

So why did the list use market cap?

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:54 pm

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:53 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:42 pm

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 11:50 am Most estimates put it around $200 billion.

Last year. This year over $250B. And that's estimated intrinsic value, not market cap value. If you believe the $250B number, it's saying that AMZN is around 25% overpriced (on the AWS side).

Intrinsic value is what we are talking about. You can't measure market cap of a part of a business other than wild speculation.

So why did the list use market cap?

It was for the whole business which can be scored if not measured. I think it would be a fools errand to wonder what the market would pay for only AWS.

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 2:31 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:54 pm

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:53 pm

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 12:42 pm

noxiousdog wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 11:50 am Most estimates put it around $200 billion.

Last year. This year over $250B. And that's estimated intrinsic value, not market cap value. If you believe the $250B number, it's saying that AMZN is around 25% overpriced (on the AWS side).

Intrinsic value is what we are talking about. You can't measure market cap of a part of a business other than wild speculation.

So why did the list use market cap?

It was for the whole business which can be scored if not measured. I think it would be a fools errand to wonder what the market would pay for only AWS.

That wasn't the point of the exercise. The point was to illustrate that comparing AMZN to a list of retailers misses an imoortant part of the picture. I still agree that the valuation is crazy.

LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Apr 05, 2018 3:03 pm That wasn't the point of the exercise. The point was to illustrate that comparing AMZN to a list of retailers misses an imoortant part of the picture. I still agree that the valuation is crazy.

AWS was touched on multiple times in the thread.

Regardless, I think it does provide an interesting context of the valuation. Ironically, I find that AWS is the valuable, least risky piece and the retail is sketchy at best.

Did my taxes last night. The news wasn't great but it wasn't horrible so I figured I'd set aside my next money's in VTI this morning. But it looks like it takes 1 to 3 business days for my deposit to post. Scottrade used to go same day. I guess the good news is, is that will keep my from making quick decisions, as I am not likely to keep money just sitting in the TDAmeritrade account waiting for that magic low BUY BUY BUY day.

For as great as 2017 was for my TSP, 2018 has been decidedly mediocre. At least for the first quarter, the only reason my account value is what it was on January 1 are my own contributions.

Thanks, Trump!

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 12:59 pm For as great as 2017 was for my TSP, 2018 has been decidedly mediocre. At least for the first quarter, the only reason my account value is what it was on January 1 are my own contributions.

Thanks, Trump!

+1

R&P ahead.

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 12:59 pm For as great as 2017 was for my TSP, 2018 has been decidedly mediocre. At least for the first quarter, the only reason my account value is what it was on January 1 are my own contributions.

Thanks, Trump!

I've lost $50k since the late January peak.

Maybe that will make LM feel a little better.

coopasonic wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:06 pm

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 12:59 pm For as great as 2017 was for my TSP, 2018 has been decidedly mediocre. At least for the first quarter, the only reason my account value is what it was on January 1 are my own contributions.

Thanks, Trump!

I've lost $50k since the late January peak.

Maybe that will make LM feel a little better.

Damn. Though the value of your account is probably higher than mine in terms of real dollars.

Yeah, a big balance makes for much bigger swings in dollar terms. I've still got 20 years or so for it to work itself out.

It also means it's harder for my contributions to "hide" the losses. Only down $6k from Jan. 1 accounting for contributions, but it sure feels like those contributions are being thrown away.

This is probably the wrong thread, but I was thinking about backing off contributions to just get my employers match since it's the balance that's really doing the work now, but it would just end up in my bank account earning next to nothing.

You are buying things at a discount right now. That's the way to look at it if you have 20 years to ride it out.

coopasonic wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:20 pm This is probably the wrong thread, but I was thinking about backing off contributions to just get my employers match since it's the balance that's really doing the work now, but it would just end up in my bank account earning next to nothing.

I think it's the exact thread. And I'm not backing off. As Zax says, we hope it's buying at a discount. I also look at maxing my contributions as 18,500 a year in which I am deferring taxes when my income is basically what I'm pulling back.

I was all when you said 50k but if you're talking 401k then mine's been brutalized as well, not 50k brutalized but by my math, not including contributions, it's about 91% of what it was at its peak.

OtOH, I do have the option to pull my investment structure in my 401kand put it in a money market that basically earns nothing. However, I don't get to freely move it back and forth. I think I can make something like 4 changes to my structure in a quarter or some such nonsense, though I can change my ongoing contribution direction at any time.

Zaxxon wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:22 pm You are buying things at a discount right now. That's the way to look at it if you have 20 years to ride it out.

Yeah, my dad always preached dollar cost averaging.

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:33 pm

Zaxxon wrote: Mon Apr 09, 2018 1:22 pm You are buying things at a discount right now. That's the way to look at it if you have 20 years to ride it out.

Yeah, my dad always preached dollar cost averaging.

I'm not sure I agree with Zaxxon, but even if there is a 20% market correction, you've at least saved 80% of that money set aside pre-tax. How much would you have saved if you didn't make the contribution?

Also, dollar cost averaging is a good idea.