TOPIC: The market and looking from the view of gamers

My Dad had Exxon Mobile for so long his capital gains would have been massive, so he kept it so when he passed away, it came to my sister and me. When it transferred, it did so at market value, so for us, there was no capital gain. He was very glad to have all that planned, and invested as a hobby for years. I never wanted to think of that day coming, but it did.

Index funds are pretty great and consistent. VOOG is 20% this last year and that’s about average too.

Ideally you got in on TSLA when it was $300, this is a crazy time.

Uh, shameless plug for Robinhood : pm for an invite and a chance to get a free stock!

I honestly won't be re-entering the market with new investments until the fallout of what's happening now hits. There will be massive issues with the rental market, housing market bubble, the downstream issues of property taxes, utility bills, and just -- at the core -- millions of people in the US (and even more worldwide) that are rapidly meeting the end of their ability to consume anything at all for lack of funds.

A few thoughts. If you work for a company or organization that offers a 401K or 403B with a match, you should be putting in at least enough to get the full match. Thats free money. Most plans give you some control of where you money is invested. So if you are feeling risk averse at the moment you can shift your investments to safe areas. But be careful about your confidence in your ability to "time the market."

Tyler Jakes wrote: I honestly won't be re-entering the market with new investments until the fallout of what's happening now hits. There will be massive issues with the rental market, housing market bubble, the downstream issues of property taxes, utility bills, and just -- at the core -- millions of people in the US (and even more worldwide) that are rapidly meeting the end of their ability to consume anything at all for lack of funds.

What will significantly alter our course of a downturn without a vaccine?

Restaurants installing plexiglass between tables to return to a density that is profitable?
Airplanes turning the middle seat as to having it facing the rear of plane so they can then partition the seats to return to capacity?
Comfortable masks so that breathing is easy...perhaps even with assisted airflow? With masks such as these we can return to lines...how about transparent masks so we can see behind the mask again?
Hospital level hygiene for cruise line and hotel rooms so that people don’t fear remnant contagion?

I mean if we get a vaccine...is all good? Or does covid strain like the flu and we need to constantly make new vaccines for new strains?

Soon in Florida, unemployment will return to $275/week from its current $875/week level. I agree that spending will fall off a cliff. This $600 thing has actually been a major injection into the economy as several percentage points of people are actually making more consumable money being unemployed than when they were employed.

Jamie Campbell wrote:

Tyler Jakes wrote: I honestly won't be re-entering the market with new investments until the fallout of what's happening now hits. There will be massive issues with the rental market, housing market bubble, the downstream issues of property taxes, utility bills, and just -- at the core -- millions of people in the US (and even more worldwide) that are rapidly meeting the end of their ability to consume anything at all for lack of funds.

What will significantly alter our course of a downturn without a vaccine?

Restaurants installing plexiglass between tables to return to a density that is profitable?
Airplanes turning the middle seat as to having it facing the rear of plane so they can then partition the seats to return to capacity?
Comfortable masks so that breathing is easy...perhaps even with assisted airflow? With masks such as these we can return to lines...how about transparent masks so we can see behind the mask again?
Hospital level hygiene for cruise line and hotel rooms so that people don’t fear remnant contagion?

I mean if we get a vaccine...is all good? Or does covid strain like the flu and we need to constantly make new vaccines for new strains?

Soon in Florida, unemployment will return to $275/week from its current $875/week level. I agree that spending will fall off a cliff. This $600 thing has actually been a major injection into the economy as several percentage points of people are actually making more consumable money being unemployed than when they were employed.

It always seemed poorly planned to me to have unemployment pay be higher than employment pay for so many people. Creating an incentive to stay out of work seemed very counterproductive.

i put some money into GNUS
it is the Kartoon Network (different spelling)
They are do educational stuff with Warnen Buffet. They have rights to Stan Lees last creation and it is an app and free (you can pay and get rid of commercials)

lazlo_hollyfeld1985 wrote: i put some money into GNUS
it is the Kartoon Network (different spelling)
They are do educational stuff with Warnen Buffet. They have rights to Stan Lees last creation and it is an app and free (you can pay and get rid of commercials)

Very cool idea. Will definitely look at some research there.

macxdmg wrote: Index funds are pretty great and consistent. VOOG is 20% this last year and that’s about average too.

Ideally you got in on TSLA when it was $300, this is a crazy time.

Uh, shameless plug for Robinhood : pm for an invite and a chance to get a free stock!

I thought my 66% return I got selling Tesla about a year ago was great.....hindsight is 20/20

Another area to consider is in moving away from stocks and holdings tied to the US markets. European investments are looking more and more solid as they seem to have a reasonable plan in place for recovery. The US is, unfortunately, at the whims of political fates. Public health decisions are being made counter to science here and we see it’s obvious impact. The EU is larger than the US but has less than 5% of the cases we do now.

The biggest companies are distributed globally (Google, Apple, Amazon, AXP, Visa, etc) so there is some safety that they benefit from a growing EU to counter a declining US.

It may make sense to invest in companies primarily focusing on the EU or the EU and China. Two good examples would be United Internet (Germany) and Alibaba (who is making huge inroads outside of China now,)

As part of that calculation, though, remember, there is a foreign investment Income tax that is harder to shield by reinvesting.

As for 401K’s, it is free money - always max out however much your employer will match and however much you can put in tax free. Yes, you pay the taxes on your contributions when you pull it out but that will be at the tax rate of where you are for retirement (likely lower than your current tax rates.)

I would avoid anything that could be sensitive to big political shock. Any companies with big stakes in Russia and Saudi Arabia, for example, will suffer if (hopefully when) the administration changes here. I would also recommend staying away from anyone heavily investing in other countries looking unstable (Venezuela, Brazil, Iran, Indonesia, etc.)

China has made tremendous advances in the past 3 years in becoming the dominant world player. They have quietly invested hundreds of billions of dollars (equivalent) in big infrastructure projects in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and India. Companies like Alibaba and Wechat could be the next Amazon and Apple. Though, there really isn’t a parallel to wechat - it is the dominant online marketplace, social media platform, financial platform, and media service in China. It would be like Amazon merging with JP Morgan, Visa, Expedia, Twitter, and Facebook.

Firefly had everything commercial in the backgrounds in Chinese for a reason folks!

Fred

Also worthwhile to post this Forbes article that seems to mirror my post, now a few days later:

www.forbes.com/sites/investor/2020/07/16/stock-market-crash-2020-welcome-to-the-end-game/#1440ab9b5782