Stock Market thoughts (continued - no politics please!)

wsuffa said:
And manages to screw those of us who need to buy a new car because someone in a 2020 BMW 8-series managed to run a light and total the old one. Probably more damage to their car than ours was worth, but that's their problem as they accepted blame. Really short on inventory on some kinds of used vehicles around here (don't wanna take the depreciation hit on a new one).
Click to expand...
???
 
SoonerAviator said:
Unless it gets extended, which is highly likely given unemployment numbers and election year pandering.
Click to expand...

Might not. Congressional dysfunction is reaching new levels of incompetence and partisan appeals to the base about how any compromise or working across the aisle is sacrilege and therefore deserves to be exiled from the party.

Tim
 
wsuffa said:
And manages to screw those of us who need to buy a new car because someone in a 2020 BMW 8-series managed to run a light and total the old one. Probably more damage to their car than ours was worth, but that's their problem as they accepted blame. Really short on inventory on some kinds of used vehicles around here (don't wanna take the depreciation hit on a new one).
Click to expand...

Ouch.

Banks are going to lend like crazy into this thing. Fed gives them free money AND we’ll definitely bail every single one of them out later, if it doesn’t work out for them.

Sub prime car loans are the new hotness. LOL

The “I need loan forgiveness because I bought a car I can’t afford” crowd, is all queued up for next year. LOL.
 
denverpilot said:
Ouch.

Banks are going to lend like crazy into this thing. Fed gives them free money AND we’ll definitely bail every single one of them out later, if it doesn’t work out for them.

Sub prime car loans are the new hotness. LOL

The “I need loan forgiveness because I bought a car I can’t afford” crowd, is all queued up for next year. LOL.
Click to expand...
I don't borrow for a depreciating asset. Drives car sellers crazy because much of their profit is there.

If I like a car and its in stock, and we can reach a reasonable price, I avoid the whole finance dance. I've walked over a $900 "documentation fee" before.
 
bflynn said:
or perhaps you’re silly to owe money in uncertain times. If you pay off the mortgage, your house is yours and it only takes a month working at McDonalds to pay the annual taxes. No matter what, you have a place to live.
Click to expand...
My annual taxes on the home I purchased for 135K are now 8k/yr, and have never been less than 6.5k/yr. Sooo....your statement is far from true for many of us re/ taxes and time spent at McDonald's. We did pay off our house as fast as we could, just for the peace of mind, but in hindsight it may NOT have been the best financial decision, although I'm still glad we did.
 
tspear said:
Might not. Congressional dysfunction is reaching new levels of incompetence and partisan appeals to the base about how any compromise or working across the aisle is sacrilege and therefore deserves to be exiled from the party.

Tim
Click to expand...
Eh, my guess is that neither party wants to go on record as not giving one more round of "free" money right before the elections. However, the amount and which business get bailed out will certainly be points of contention. Even Trump alluded to a second payout that would be coming after July, not that he has the power to grant such a thing, but I'm sure they have it in the works.
 
MuseChaser said:
My annual taxes on the home I purchased for 135K are now 8k/yr, and have never been less than 6.5k/yr. Sooo....your statement is far from true for many of us re/ taxes and time spent at McDonald's. We did pay off our house as fast as we could, just for the peace of mind, but in hindsight it may NOT have been the best financial decision, although I'm still glad we did.
Click to expand...

We were comparing property tax rates elsewhere on another more financial forum recently and the differences are impressive.

Some of y’all sure pay a lot. I hope you get stellar services for that. Honestly.

Your property taxes are many multiples of mine on 4 acres.

I think I’d be asking for dinner at least before that. LOL
 
denverpilot said:
Your property taxes are many multiples of mine on 4 acres.
Click to expand...
But what do they do there besides plow the roads? :rofl:. Actually, they did a pretty good job, at least on the roads I drove on.

I benefit from longevity of family ownership here, but my taxes are still over twice as much as there. Property is worth twice as much too, even though there's no way that it should be. However, I'm lucky, I'm sure the property taxes would be be much worse if I was a new owner.
 
denverpilot said:
We were comparing property tax rates elsewhere on another more financial forum recently and the differences are impressive.
Click to expand...

It's all a bit of shell game. States need to do stuff and I've done a lot of analysis of places we want to retire to over the years and the differences in overall costs are less than you think. We're retiring to NH. Property taxes vary wildly all over the state and are generally higher than many states (although where we are looking about the same as where we are in MD). But NH has no income tax and no sales tax.
 
Both parties have mentioned big bailout bills directed at infrastructure. I'm hoping one of them passes. My employer is in that line of work, and it would be a great boost to our 1200 employees.
 
Most states are fairly equal in terms of overall tax rate. Obviously some are a bit more extreme, but they're generally pretty close when you add up the typical tax burden between income, sales, and property taxes. The advantage to living in a low property tax state is normally recognized once retirement comes along and many of the larger purchases are finished, as well as a lower tax bracket for income.
 
Pugs said:
It's all a bit of shell game. States need to do stuff and I've done a lot of analysis of places we want to retire to over the years and the differences in overall costs are less than you think. We're retiring to NH. Property taxes vary wildly all over the state and are generally higher than many states (although where we are looking about the same as where we are in MD). But NH has no income tax and no sales tax.
Click to expand...

Agreed. There’s games like that. Texas does similar and your analysis has to be on all of it.

But there’s a few places where WOW you get hit with all of them for no significant increase in actual services. That’s all I was sayin.

And sorry it wandered off of stock market topic.

Taxes on investments is a whole ‘nother interesting deal. I seriously wish the Roth option was available to me in my 20s. Now it complicates my life. LOL. Heck I wish the HSAs were also. The kids have some nice deals if they choose to partake!

But... being young and broke they often miss it. Or ignore us old farts who try to tell ‘em, like our old farts did. Haha.

Quite a few of them buty into this weirdness that capitalism is going away also. Certain social media sites are littered with the totally useless phrase “late stage capitalism”. I always laugh at that one. If you refuse to play the game, expect a new non-late-stage capitalist to be making a lot of money off of you while you wait around for them to not be interested in selling you something. Hahaha!

Every single personal finance mistake for the really far into that crowd is always, “Loan forgiveness! Loan forgiveness!” No. Pay your bill, kiddo. You signed the contract. Or file the bankruptcy and deal with the consequences. The game wasn’t a mystery or unavailable information to you. Sucks, I know. Been there, done that. Paid off my “stupid with zeros on the end”. :)
 
Although, I might give it a different definition, "Late Stage Capitalism" might be as good a description as any of where we are. The Fed is helping those with substantial equity ownership and screwing the 90% who don't have enough to really benefit. Poorly run companies are not allowed to fail. The government (Fed) is about to buy corporate bonds and there is discussion of its buying equities. None of that sounds like real (classic) capitalism to me.

EDIT: A much better discussion of our situation today is available at: principles.com
 
Last edited:
denverpilot said:
I seriously wish the Roth option was available to me in my 20s. Now it complicates my life.
Click to expand...
I do too, but I doubt I would have taken advantage of it. I want my tax break NOW, not when I'm 70. :D

At least I had the foresight to invest in my 20s, which I'm happy about now.
 
wsuffa said:
... I've walked over a $900 "documentation fee" before.
Click to expand...
Yup. I never pay those. The F&I guys look like they've been hit with a 2x4 when I tell them. It apparently never happens.

One fun one: F&I: "You'd lose this deal for $200?" Me: "That's your decision." He caved, knocked $200 of the price of the truck so his bosses wouldn't know that he failed to collect the "documentation" gouge.
 
....thought we were discussing the Stock Market?

in that vein, if you haven’t gotten out yet, now might be the time.
 
airdale said:
Yup. I never pay those. The F&I guys look like they've been hit with a 2x4 when I tell them. It apparently never happens.

One fun one: F&I: "You'd lose this deal for $200?" Me: "That's your decision." He caved, knocked $200 of the price of the truck so his bosses wouldn't know that he failed to collect the "documentation" gouge.
Click to expand...

I used to play those games. I "helped" my wife when she wanted to buy a car a few years ago. I negotiated the price, then the doc fee.... After about twenty minutes of this; she speaks up and says.
This is the bottom line. Here is what I will pay net. This is the car I want. Can you do it... They tried to get her to discuss the parts of the deal, she would just repeat. Here is the net I am willing to pay.
F&I got a little frustrated, and she replied. Ok, bye and started to walk away. lmao, it was funny. The store manager stepped in at that point, and worked with her and then told the F&I guy what to do.

Really rather amazing; then she repeated the whole deal for my son to buy his car.

Tim
 
wsuffa said:
I've walked over a $900 "documentation fee" before.
Click to expand...

Around here, $500 is typical.

Last two used cars I’ve bought at dealers (2011 Ford Flex and 2006 Honda Ridgeline), I was ready to walk over the doc fee. In each case they would not budge on the doc fee, but dropped the price so that the “doc fee” just brought the price back up to the price we had agreed upon beforehand. Games people play.
 
Stocks anyone?

Another 700 down today. Financials leading the drop.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 
denverd1 said:
Stocks anyone?

Another 700 down today. Financials leading the drop.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

It seems to me the market must be running on pure emotion. The prez sez "We're doing great. Its gonna be a V shape recovery." and the markets shoot up 1,000 points in a week. Then, reality sets in, and we realize 'da COVID' ain't going away any time soon. And, ----guess what?

I'm just setting tight. Got my budget put away for a couple of years. And, we're ready to ride it out.
 
wilkersk said:
It seems to me the market must be running on pure emotion. The prez sez "We're doing great. Its gonna be a V shape recovery." and the markets shoot up 1,000 points in a week. Then, reality sets in, and we realize 'da COVID' ain't going away any time soon. And, ----guess what?

I'm just setting tight. Got my budget put away for a couple of years. And, we're ready to ride it out.
Click to expand...
I was ready to deploy funds last week. Soooo glad I waited. Yea we're in for a long road IMO. Wait till more earnings come it. I think we'll begin seeing the real picture.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 
denverd1 said:
I was ready to deploy funds last week. Soooo glad I waited. Yea we're in for a long road IMO. Wait till more earnings come it. I think we'll begin seeing the real picture.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...


My wife kept insisting we keep a lot of cash. I fought her on this right up until Nov '16. Then, I didn't fight her anymore. Instead, we started putting a percentage of tax-deferred into fixed accounts, earning modest interest. And, we built up our taxable savings.

We still had more than 70% of our total portfolio in stocks. So, we got a nice ride on the Trump train. But, when we saw what this COVID thing, along with the Saudi's and the Russians trying to corner the energy market, we cut our stock holdings back to 50%, paid off the mortgage and put the rest into cash. Big tax hit next year. But, uncle Sam will get his piece one way or another anyway.

Now, we've discovered peer-lending investments. we've put a little bit of our 3-to-5 year bucket in these, earning about 8% average. Haven't gone whole hog yet. Because I want to see what the market downturn will do to the default rate on this type of lending.
 
wilkersk said:
My wife kept insisting we keep a lot of cash. I fought her on this right up until Nov '16. Then, I didn't fight her anymore. Instead, we started putting a percentage of tax-deferred into fixed accounts, earning modest interest. And, we built up our taxable savings.

We still had more than 70% of our total portfolio in stocks. So, we got a nice ride on the Trump train. But, when we saw what this COVID thing, along with the Saudi's and the Russians trying to corner the energy market, we cut our stock holdings back to 50%, paid off the mortgage and put the rest into cash. Big tax hit next year. But, uncle Sam will get his piece one way or another anyway.

Now, we've discovered peer-lending investments. we've put a little bit of our 3-to-5 year bucket in these, earning about 8% average. Haven't gone whole hog yet. Because I want to see what the market downturn will do to the default rate on this type of lending.
Click to expand...
Interesting for sure. Do you a preferred group you work with?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
 
FastEddieB said:
Around here, $500 is typical.

Last two used cars I’ve bought at dealers (2011 Ford Flex and 2006 Honda Ridgeline), I was ready to walk over the doc fee. In each case they would not budge on the doc fee, but dropped the price so that the “doc fee” just brought the price back up to the price we had agreed upon beforehand. Games people play.
Click to expand...


When we bought a truck a couple of month ago, my wife was swapping texts with the dealer while I was driving home from GA. This fee, that fee, add this, oops forgot that, on and on, back and forth... I finally told her to text "Bottom line - our trade plus a check for $XX and we drive away. You work out the numbers any way you like." Ten minutes later we had a reply. "You have a deal." We picked it up the next day.

The BS gets tiresome.
 
I updated a software package for a car dealer many years ago. It took all the numbers, did all the calculations and printed the fill in the blanks on the contract (daisy wheel printer on multipart paper-pre laser days).

The F&I person makes a bunch of commission on all that add on stuff. That’s why they fight so hard for it. And why I suspect they lower the price of the car rather than cut the fees.
 
jsstevens said:
I updated a software package for a car dealer many years ago. It took all the numbers, did all the calculations and printed the fill in the blanks on the contract (daisy wheel printer on multipart paper-pre laser days). ...
Click to expand...
Yes. People have a very unhealthy respect for numbers printed on paper. The first thing I do when the F&I guy slides the sheet over to me is to cross out the doc fee and change the total to reflect the cross-out. The absolutely predictable then happens -- every single time: "What are you doing?"

tspear said:
... Here is the net I am willing to pay. F&I got a little frustrated, and she replied. Ok, bye and started to walk away. ...
Click to expand...
Good job. One of the rules from Negotiating 101: "If you're not willing to leave the table you aren't negotiating; you are begging."
 
Morgan3820 said:
That stipend is scheduled to end July 31. Knowing that, You think that people would be saving rather than spending.
Click to expand...


I don't mind unemployment benefits. I don't at all understand why the government would add a premium of $600/wk over what a lot of people were making when they were actually going to work.
 
denverd1 said:
Interesting for sure. Do you a preferred group you work with?

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I tried Prosper and Lending Club. I think I like Prosper's way of doing things a bit better. Lending Club's tech has been a little glitchey for me. I've only had money there for 6 months. But so far, I haven't seen any late payments from borrowers in either one. So, their screening and approval process must be pretty good.
 
Juliet Foxtrot said:
I don't mind unemployment benefits. I don't at all understand why the government would add a premium of $600/wk over what a lot of people were making when they were actually going to work.
Click to expand...

This is what I guess based on reading the news.
because most unemployment benefits around the country are actually significantly below poverty levels, even below minimum wage. The goal of the program was to keep people spending money; so the $600 bump was a rough estimate based on the gap between benefits and real earnings.
Then when the layoffs happened; there came the realization that the estimate was based a cross section of the economy, instead it was actually just the roughly bottom 40% of the income earners who lost jobs. The result, was a pay bump for many of them.

Tim
 
Velocity173 said:
Looking at Apple or Tesla. How long to wait before buy?
Click to expand...

Did you buy either?

AAPL now at 479.91
TSLA now at 2062.68

And both about to split.

My philosophy is when a stock pops up on your radar as a “buy”, just buy it. Waiting for a dip or some specific price can prevent huge gains for just a few dollars one way or another.

Of course, I think about what my 100 shares of TSLA would be worth right now had I not sold them towards the end of 2018 to buy our PHEV Clarity. Sigh. We love the car and have saved a lot on gas and $7,500 on taxes. But likely not $165,000 worth!

On the plus side, we did reacquire 13 shares of TSLA at around $300. Soon to be 65 shares post-split. Still hoping those shares will partially or completely pay for our Cybertruck someday!
 
Last edited:
FastEddieB said:
Did you buy either?

AAPL now at 479.91
TSLA now at 2062.68

And both about to split.

My philosophy is when a stock pops up on your radar as a “buy”, just buy it. Waiting for a dip or some specific price can prevent huge gains for just a few dollars one way or another.

Of course, I think about what my 100 shares of TSLA would be worth right now had I not sold them towards the end of 2018 to buy our PHEV Clarity. Sigh. We love the car and have saved a lot on gas. But likely not $165,000 worth!

On the plus side, we did reacquire 13 shares of TSLA at around $300. Soon to be 65 shares post-split. Still hoping those shares will partially or completely pay for our Cybertruck someday!
Click to expand...

Well, sort of. I owned 4 shares at $410 a share back in March. I thought that it was just beginning to climb when everyone was saying don’t buy, it’s just a bump on the way down. Yeah, not long after I sold, it skyrocketed. I broke even. It was a good time to make a quick buck though. I just had no confidence in the market.
 
I hear the naysayers and I keep imagining them as people who stayed out of the market too long and are now desperately wishing for a 10,000 pt drop so they can jump in and "be right".

The S&P is at new highs. Lucky timing, I got into VOO in late Mar/early Apr when the cash freed up and up 35% since. I'm not looking back.

Love seeing AAPL and TSLA at their highs and sorry I'll have to sell both because of a new job. Both are going to outperform in the coming months.

There's no known negatives looking forward. I don't think the market is being irrational, people are realizing we're coming out of the tunnel. Are there going to be more downs? Sure, the market goes up and it goes down. But mostly it goes up.
 
bflynn said:
I hear the naysayers and I keep imagining them as people who stayed out of the market too long and are now desperately wishing for a 10,000 pt drop so they can jump in and "be right".

The S&P is at new highs. Lucky timing, I got into VOO in late Mar/early Apr when the cash freed up and up 35% since. I'm not looking back.

Love seeing AAPL and TSLA at their highs and sorry I'll have to sell both because of a new job. Both are going to outperform in the coming months.

There's no known negatives looking forward. I don't think the market is being irrational, people are realizing we're coming out of the tunnel. Are there going to be more downs? Sure, the market goes up and it goes down. But mostly it goes up.
Click to expand...
I have a different view looking forward, and there is uncertainty there - especially with the election and the continuance of COVID.
 
Disagreement is why we have a market. Every time a stock is traded, it is because one person believes it's overpriced and one person believes it's underpriced. One of them is wrong.
 
bflynn said:
Disagreement is why we have a market. Every time a stock is traded, it is because one person believes it's overpriced and one person believes it's underpriced. One of them is wrong.
Click to expand...

That seems to be an odd, zero-sum way of looking at it.

I guess if you see it as gambling where you’re betting on a stock going up or down, maybe that makes sense.

But if you see it as purchasing or selling a tiny portion of a company based on your faith in that company, your buying a share while someone else is selling a share does not imply anyone is “wrong”, only that they differ in their views of a company’s prospects and how it fits in with their investment strategy. And I still think that an efficient market nullifies any concept of overpriced or underpriced - at any given moment the price of a stock is exactly where it should be, all things considered.
 
FastEddieB said:
That seems to be an odd, zero-sum way of looking at it.

I guess if you see it as gambling where you’re betting on a stock going up or down, maybe that makes sense.

But if you see it as purchasing or selling a tiny portion of a company based on your faith in that company, your buying a share while someone else is selling a share does not imply anyone is “wrong”, only that they differ in their views of a company’s prospects and how it fits in with their investment strategy. And I still think that an efficient market nullifies any concept of overpriced or underpriced - at any given moment the price of a stock is exactly where it should be, all things considered.
Click to expand...

Very few value investors in the markets anymore with computerized trading. They truly are just trying to predict which way you’ll go to counter it and beat you with sheer size or volume.

I’m still a value guy but often you have to ride out a massive automated war pushing a good company up or down for years. Many don’t have the patience anymore.

Some of these automated trading shops have literally measured the length of the fiber optics they’ll need for connectivity to beat the other automated folks by tiny fractions of a second. Their algorithm might look at value, but not as a major piece of their code.

Then there’s the question of whether they truly beat everyone else...? Who knows because they don’t share data, but they don’t go out of business. Many fund their automated shenanigans with fees from more “normal” investors though, so they hide the losses by just charging more.

On the flip side, transactions for normal investors used to be expensive. All the computer spending made transactions essentially free, as long as the management fees are paid, and those are all over the map and worth shopping at every level they occur at. They will eat small profits.

In general though, the market is very disconnected from actual company values. It can be tough to hunt down value stocks that aren’t being dragged around by things that have nothing to do with actual company performance.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top