This page is set up for those that want to chat about various common stocks.
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3/30/2025
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News round-up –
— Klarna KLAR is a “buy now pay later” company – BNPL to the typing challenged. KLAR has an IPO coming up. KLAR operates in many countries. In the US it works with companies like Uber, Macys, Apple, WalMart and Doordash. (Yes, you can finance your burrito deliveries.) KLAR has a lot of competition including Affirm AFRM, AfterPay XYZ and big banks.
— OPEC is pumping 130K-BBLs more oil in April, gradually bringing back 2.2 million BBLs of the 5.8 million it took off line. (I tend to think there’s too much crude oil and too many wildcards and that crude prices are more likely to go down than up. )
— I use Sector SPDRs as a rough gauge of what’s in and what’s out. The surprise for me so far this year- all but two sectors outperformed the S&P-500. Yup, SPY really is top heavy. Top and bottom performers YTD –
Best performers: Energy, Health Care, Utilities
Worst performers: Consumer Discretionary, Technology
JMO. DYODD.
The Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF SCHD seems like an easy income placeholder. It is a popular choice for income-oriented investors. The SCHD index was just reconstituted. The biggest addition was a surprise to me – ConocoPhillips COP, now 4.6% of SCHD’s portfolio and SCHD’s largest holding, followed by CVX at 4.4%. Including SCHD’s other new energy adds, (SLB, HAL, OVV, MUR) energy is now the largest segment of SCHD, 21%.
The second largest sector is consumer staples at 18.7%. The biggest sector drop was financials, a 50% cut, dropping from #1 to #5. Notable adds: MRK, TGT, GIS, ADM. Notable drop: PFE. ( From re-org write-up on The Other Website. )
Long energy and looking to trim. Not eager to add SCHD right now. Trying to avoid portfolio overlap. JMO, DYODD.
Bear I had been looking at PFE as a buy because of the dividend and its buy of several other companies and drugs in the pipeline. But after seeing a short news article about the beginning of an investigation into the company that says they are accused of withholding the release of their COVID-19 vaccine until after the 2020 election. I’m not sure about all the things coming out of Washington these days that I want to be holding prior to any investigation by the DOJ and the FDA so I cancelled my GTC order in case I wasn’t watching and hit.
Bear –
Thanks for the update on SCHD, which I own. I don’t buy too many common stocks since I mostly use ETFs and CEFs for equity exposure. Another ETF I own (COWZ) has also gone big into the energy space.
COWZ owns the top 100 free cash flow yielding US companies, and is now 23% energy. Largest positions are COP, XOM, MPC, and CVX.
So these ETFs are now using energy as both high dividend and free cash flow plays.
As to PFE, I almost can’t count the number of investors that have recommended PFE on the long side during the last two years (including a few folks on this website).
It has sadly become what is called a “widow-maker” investment.
– Thanks for the info on COWZ. I use the much-hated SPDV instead which is equal weighted. Overlap is a concern for me – I am long energy, single stocks, and looking to trim so trying to diversify by switching to an ETF with a heavy energy weighting doesn’t work for me.
– Health care has a lot of headwinds, tariffs on drugs and ingredients, cost impacts on insurers, Medicare HHS issues, Not looking to add here. JMO. DYODD
Papa Doc-
Even though I discussed PFE and have a very small position, I would never recommend that someone buy it. If you think I did, then you need to be careful about misinterpreting what people write here.
I’m holding many legacy single company stocks in a taxable account with capital gains, but am trying to divert most current and future stock accumulations to funds. Namely, SCHD, PEY and ETG. The latter is 19% leveraged and pays 8% with a (for me) decent amount of return of capital. At 9%, I’m actually underweight energy and am trying to bump that up a few % points.
Ford ( F ) ….. Thursday am & Wed overnight …. Fasten Seat Belts …
Wed Close : $10.30
Wed After Hours : Low of $9.70
Thurs Pre Open : $9.80 up to $10.50 … Volm =4.9mm
I have been riding F Preferred ( FpD ) down in price …closed @ $23.28
Anyone invested in XYLD? https://www.globalxetfs.com/funds/xyld/
It’s a S&P 500 Covered Call ETF paying monthly dividend (depending on option premium earned). Currently hovering around 11-12% p.a. https://www.globalxetfs.com/content/files/XYLD-factsheet.pdf
My take: probably not ideal for holding long term (>3-5 years) as currently it it is hovering close to 10+ year low. Possible to capture some decent capital gains if S&P500 index goes up. Dividend may go up with increase underlying overall stock volatility and vice versa. Thoughts?
Ex-DateRecord|DatePayable|Date|Amount
01/22/202401/23/202401/30/2024$0.313800
02/20/202402/21/202402/28/2024$0.301700
03/18/202403/19/202403/26/2024$0.321900
04/22/202404/23/202404/30/2024$0.340400
05/20/202405/21/202405/29/2024$0.281900
06/24/202406/24/202407/01/2024$0.276400
07/22/202407/22/202407/29/2024$0.312600
08/19/202408/19/202408/26/2024$0.400000
09/23/202409/23/202409/30/2024$0.341900
10/21/202410/21/202410/28/2024$0.386000
11/18/202411/18/202411/25/2024$0.371000
12/30/202412/30/202401/07/2025$1.189548
01/21/202501/21/202501/28/2025$0.373000
02/24/202502/24/202503/03/2025$0.290700
03/24/202503/24/202503/31/2025$0.400500
RetiredPutu – These are great annuity type vehicles to deliver systematic income. However I punted on XYLD years ago; if memory serves, they basically covered their short write side of the trade on a Thursday, going naked into Friday (which you NEVER do as a money manager) and then the market tanked overnight, gapping down hard that Friday morning.
So not only did they cover at the worst possible price, they then had to sell premium on that Friday at an even worse price part of the trade as well. That single mistake extrapolates into something like 3 or 4 months worth of distributions.
I would strongly recommend checking out XDTE and QDTE. These pay weekly distributions as they buy write options on a daily basis, and XDTE has actually outperformed the S&P 500 for over a year now, including the entire bull cycle of that period which is absolutely astounding. Yields on both of those are in the 30% range.
Also you can DRIP weekly and therefore build a stronger position over time instead of waiting for a sole monthly distribution. Lastly if a bad trade happens, recovering from that in a 5 day window is much much easier than a 4 week since premiums are going to be way less and not such a critical component.
Thanks theta for the suggestion. The only thing is that XYLD has more than 10 years of trading history while XDTE and QDTE has only about a year. I’ll keep watch on all these three ETFs.
RetiredPutu – Thanks for that info; I didn’t realize it’s been 10 years now! Time is relentless. Now you made me super curious; when I have a moment, I will dump down all historical distributions and see what the aggregate return looks like, as I’m being a bit critical because of a narrow window of time.
Theta,
I’m interested in your comment re systematic income, as I’m certain you know –but most buyers of these things would not—-that anyone buying the fund is selling naked puts unless I misunderstand what the fund does.
I’ve had quite a bit of trouble over the years getting people who want to sell calls on their stock portfolio to understand they are converting their position into the sale of a naked put. Most of the time these people would say selling naked puts is too risky.
Doesn’t the decision boil down to one of vols and smiles?
Most people (and FINRA) think selling calls on a stock position is conservative, but selling naked puts isn’t. I had this discussion with FINRA on their registered rep CE test. The people I dealt with were clueless what i was talking about and my securities lawyer at the time (who had been CBOE General Counsel) told me to stop trying to get them to understand.
I’m also wondering if you have a FV spread between STRF and STRK. This spread seems tradeable
I tend to agree with Cliff.
https://www.aqr.com/Insights/Perspectives/Rebuffed-A-Closer-Look-at-Options-Based-Strategies
lt – We are on the same page with respect to STRK and STRF. I was thinking the same thing. Appears on an annualized basis though, cost to carry the borrowed STRK shares is going to land somewhere around 7%. I have to play with the numbers a bit more, but I am not as excited as I initially was.
I concur with your observations with respect to naked puts. This strategy gets such a bad name too. But I can understand why. Over two decades ago now when I first discovered this literal money premium printing strategy was possible (what could go wrong? lol) and the margin requirements were way less stringent and small, you could really stack yourself up big time with basically taking on an obligation of eating share quantities your account did not have anywhere near the sufficient buying power for. Those were wild and fun times for sure.
Now it’s gone to the other extreme where most brokers, even Robinhood, will cash secure your naked put with a 100% requirement of the position. Even if it’s a stock that is fully marginable with 25% maintenance, they are still going to lock up 100% of the aggregate amount from your cash balance. (Now if you have a PM account, that is a different story.)
Over the years I have calmed down and now really only used naked puts as a substitute for a limit buy order for shares on an underlying that I actually would and could take delivery on.
Now in terms of if you want go down that rabbit hole with respect to time value vs. IV and other metric measures of delta, gamma, vega, etc. I tried that and quite frankly, I really prefer using technical indicators on the underlying itself and just confirming that I’m not “overpaying” for the premium or in my case more specifically when writing, am being properly compensated for the risk I was taking on.
One specific naked put strategy I had allot of success on was selling puts that would die before there was a confirmed binary announcement type event date, especially in biotech and these types of high alpha scenarios. This was super profitable.
Here is the only single instance were covered call writing is a very powerful tool, kind of as a bond hybrid mantra. This was very helpful the last few years when yields were zilch on bonds/preferreds and I can’t pay over par in my taxable accounts. What I do is look for higher yielding dividend individual stock payers say in the 5-6%+ range.
I figure out on a quarterly basis what the dividend will be, say for instance, they have an upcoming ex divi date in 2 months from now that is going to be 50 cents.
So what I do is I’ll go long shares and then drop down on the option ladder, to the deepest ITM call strike with the longest expiration that will net me that same difference of 50 cents i.e. the net debit difference amount of the premium I am capturing from selling the calls vs. what I actually paid for the stock vs. the strike price.
This results is me getting a giant cushion against any downside and with 99.9% certainty those shares will be taken from me in 2 months but I’m getting that 50 cents profit and best part it’s now actually a short term gain, NOT income as the stock is being sold for the lower strike. And because I have a giant carry forward loss, I am reaping this tax liability free. So now that 5-6+% yield effectively becomes 8+% or more. I’ll probably start doing this again since I am kind of getting bearish on individual equities here.
The reason why the above can’t be achieved with naked puts is because you’d just end up selling a deep OTM position with a long maturity and be stuck holding it statically speaking. You wouldn’t be able to recycle out of it by dynamically capturing that effective divi amount every three months.
In terms of what I am active with now, I have really moved out of options and absolutely love futures, in particular currencies and commodities. Especially in this environment, much easier to understand supply and demand with geopolitical impacts etc.
Take for instance copper. So for those that don’t know, 1 contract controls 25,000 lbs of spot copper. Last week I bought some contracts at $5. So effectively each contract in aggregate is worth $125,000 but you are only required to put up roughly $6000-$9000 (depends on your broker and account size) for each contract.
Copper just goes up 10 cents and your month is made. The nice thing about futures is that you can trade them 24/7. I would stay away from index futures though as those can move violently in a blink and in the middle of the night.
Theta,
Give me a day to digest this thingy with the futures and take a look.
As a general rule I try not to take risk as my risk days are over. That’s why I just dumped more $ into the 5% 18-month CD
Curious if you don’t mind on the source of the large carryforward loss
Dollar Tree DLTR is selling Family Dollar to PE. DLTR is up on the news. Stores from these two chains are in a lot of REIT portfolios.
Summary of a random DLTR conference call question: “Asked about mitigation strategies for tariffs. DLTR CEO … explained ongoing efforts, including negotiating supplier concessions, altering product specifications, and leveraging the multi-price strategy to offset costs.”
Lower quality, emptier boxes and higher prices as a competitive strategy — Or why I am now finding lower prices at WalMart and the local discount supermarket powerhouse than at the dollar stores. JMO. DYODD.
Chemical makers DOW and LYB made new lows today. Not too far below for both is a CY of 8% if the dividends remain the same. Watching.
Good alert on DOW as I don’t follow that one close enough. The stock is now trading at lows we haven’t seen since early/mid 2020. A near 8% yield here is wild.
I have to take a look under the hood to find out how sustainable that current distribution $$ amount is. I looked quite awhile back as it seemed they were issuing debt almost every week in my daily corp bond scans and at that point and their total debt was approaching $17B so their levered free cash flow is deeply negative.
theta-
Please share what you find under the hood. If the dividend drops, look out below. Same for LYB.
From what I see LYB is guided to pay more than 90% of free cash flow to dividends for 2025 and 2026.
Dow looks like more than 100% of FCF for 2025 and 2026. These are just quick check in FastGraphs. I like this stuff too and would be interested in hearing arguments to long them.
rocks2stocks – Circling back on our discussion for DOW. I am just going to wait on the sidelines. The technical setup reminds of me when they took VZ down really hard to $29 handle in late 2023 and the divi yield was wild.
Technically though DOW just failed an attempted double bottom bounce in the last 30 days and it’s been straight down again to lower lows.
What really jumps out at me is their debt to equity ratio of 99%. You can double check my napkin math but it appears the current annual dividend for DOW costs them over $2B. Meanwhile their operating cash flow is $2.9B.
Probably the most prudent approach you could take is put on a small starter position here at the peak of this end of quarter relentless selling and then see if the divi holds. Not to mention all the macro chaos that is kicking off right now. We’ll have to see how this plays out in terms of not only company specifics but the sector as a whole.
From what I read recently, DOW current dividend payout is more than 100% of its net profit. If this goes on for another quarter or two coupled with the softening of the economy, there is a high chance of a dividend cut. I’ve owned some DOW stocks and currently in the red.
theta and Retired – Dow
This is the famous “catch a falling knife” scenario.
Fine as a trading foray, but not worthy of major investment at this point.
I’ve got 1.25% in it – lightening a tad and taking my losses – worth a Hold from here.
Interestingly, BCE in Canada is in the same boat paying a double digit div which everyone agrees they cannot sustain.
Am holding my small position there and collecting the div which is yet to be cut.
I’ve stopped chasing commons like this. Too many people are a lot smarter than me and have a lot more information. Been burned too many times. I’ve instead picked up some CEF’s. Example, DNP, good volume and for 35+ years the price has basically fluctuated between 8.50 and 11.50. During this time its paid a steady monthly dividend of .065 (never missing) which at current trading price (~$9.65) is about 8% yield.
JustRetired-
Here’s the 38-year price history of DNP summarized in a 3-monthly chart.
https://www.tradingview.com/x/sznvlEDa/
During a recession it breaks down, like most everything else. Good time to buy?
The website shows the 6.5 cents monthly dividend going back to 2017. Do you know of more history for the dividend?
Looking at Yahoo Finance it shows .065/mth back to July 1997. Before that it was .06/mth back to 1987. I’ve held it about 12 years. Pays faithfully. Took a major dump during the GFC in 2008-09 and a bit of a dump in 2024. I added to my position throughout 2024. Overall I’m up about 10%. Nothing spectacular over 12 years but I’m in it for the steady dividend. Before purchasing look at CEFConnect website and check the price premium. Right now it is at a 5.3% premium. 6mth avg is 4.3% and 3 and 5yr avg is around 15% premium. Under 5% premium I think is OK to buy, obviously the closer to 0 is the best.
JustRetired-
Very helpful. I bought some today at 8% CY, which I plan to hold. I will add on big dips. I don’t know where the yield comes from with a portfolio of utes. Leverage?
Yield is bulked up by leverage. And I’m not certain, but I recall it has years of capital gains stored up. They announce their dividends in advance every three months. Like clockwork, about 10 days ago they announced their upcoming dividends for April, May, and June… yup 6.5cents
JustRetired – DNP is a good fit for me right now. If you have any others up your sleeve, feel free to share. Cheers.
Thanks to you & r2r on this post, thread. Very interesting item that may fit well for many on page.
I assume there isn’t any special tax filing docs re the divis. ??
I sold my small gold positions today
IAU +60% (held 3 years)
AGI +89% (held 2 years)
Here’s my very guessy guess for gold: A major top in the next 6 months, a long correction up to 20%, a rally to 4000. No surprise if something entirely different happens.
Rocks, I sold my BTG last week at $3.30. I still think there is some upward momentum to gold stocks but I didn’t want to wait for the peak. I got out of KNTNF way too soon, but I made money so no complaints.
My crystal ball I got from the mystic healers store doesn’t work for gold. Your guess is as good as anyone’s for 6 months out.
Shipping stocks — Hearings begin today on proposed large new taxes – docking fees – on foreign shipping companies docking at US ports. Complex rules, intended to affect Chinese companies, Chinese-built vessels and companies ordering from Chinese shipyards. Impact uncertain – news talk only about container ships- could cover oil tankers as well. (possibly affect US farm exports, US refiners importing crude, etc.) JMO. DYODD.
MU has tested the 83-88 level five times since the June high, most recently making lower highs each time. Today it’s down 6% on earnings to 96. If the support area doesn’t hold, it could end up in the 60s. Not a prediction.
I bring this up because there are probably broader implications to MU weakness. Also on earnings today, NKE and FDX getting hit hard.
With everything going on, treasuries are more or less stable in the last few days. PFFA had been hanging around 22 for two months but now 21.56.
Tesla…… down almost 7% today after the Commerce Secretary recommended that it’s a buy in that it will never be this cheap again. My personal thoughts this is a stock to stay away from. Tesla is in trouble on multiple fronts. Sales are in the toilet, outdated vehicles that are overpriced, and quality control problems to name a few. Tesla is not in my portfolio……..
I was in a Costco parking lot today and saw a bumper sticker that read “I bought this before Elon went crazy”. I guess people are getting their Teslas keyed and dented very frequently. I don’t like Musk, but I’m not sure I agree with the people doing this. Unfortunately, unruly behavior just leads to unruly behavior as a response. Rough times ahead.
Tesla has a handy backdoor to escape through in the event of heavy US tariffs on imports followed by foreign retaliation – Tesla exports cars from its Chinese manufacturing plant to Asia and beyond. I don’t follow Tesla but it seems that Tesla’s China situation is more price than popularity. BYD is a formidable high-volume competitor with a lower price point. BYDDF BYDDY (The old Henry Ford approach. A local Ford dealer radio commercial in the 70’s – “We lose money on every sale but we make it up on volume.” They were not kidding. ) I don’t own Tesla except in funds. JMO DYODD.
“How BYD undercuts Tesla around the world, by the numbers
BYD is more affordable than Tesla in at least 10 places outside the West.”
https://restofworld.org/2025/byd-beats-tesla-on-price/
Bear
a thought on tesla vs byd
China is happy to subsidize BYD to help its economy.
Years ago, we worked with some companies that were building solar panels in China. Chinese gov. really wanted to be big in that industry, and was willing to pay for it.
So, the gov. gave companies free land for factories, financed construction and tooling (essentially for free), let the companies pledge the tools to the banks to get working capital (yes, that is kind of a double count), and committed to buy some portion of the factory output (to keep the factories humming). Bottom line was that they could produce solar panels that were cheaper than any available from anywhere else in the world.
It went well for a couple of years, then the US woke up and realized that US producers were all going out of business (part of Chinese strategy all along), and imposed big tariffs (many years before Trump).
Rest of the world got a lot of cheap panels, China got jobs and export sales.
I have not been involved with BYD (which is why I can comment), but I suspect the Chinese are following the same plan as they did for solar panels.
TSLA down 7% today Mar 20??? TSLA closed +0.17%.
Copper futures (HG) have been rallying since Jan 2 and are approaching the May high. OTOH, FCX, which peaked with HG in May, has had a much smaller rally. I find that odd. There must be something more to FCX than the price of copper. Either that, or FCX is way underpriced.
I’ll just add two tidbits as I trade commodities and have been in and out of FCX over the years.
Presently the biggest hidden bullish attribute is the fact that most people don’t know or are dramatically underestimating FCX gold production. I haven’t checked very recently but I want to say off hand it’s somewhere around 15-20% of aggregate revenue. But here is the kicker, that is a super stale low estimate from a balance sheet perspective because now, the price of spot Gold is probably up another $800+ per ounce.
On the flip side, if memory serves, I believe 1Q is historically FCX weakest production #s of the year, so you might see this current price action taking that factoid into effect and folks waiting on the sidelines.
This is a tricky stock because you have to be careful if you are trying to lump sum in. Just a month too early will make a dramatic impact on your ROR going forward. I think dividend yield is only maybe 1%ish so you won’t get bailed out much by a DRIP.
I’d like to know why copper is so hot. Usually driven by traders expecting higher demand from China…at least that’s my KISS notion.
Random thought-wondering if commodity importers get hit by tariffs.
FCX down again, now hitting $39 handle. The reality is these types of enterprises are the least bit simple, rather they require a more sophisticated and complex investment understanding and approach.
There are many variables and factors that land in a different reality. Right, we see copper futures rising and rising but that doesn’t necessarily correlate to this company or the particular stock price.
As furcal alluded to, the price runup we are seeing right now is absolutely relative to those potential imminent policy changing implications due to massive inventory drawdowns in Asia and probably Europe is next.
If you want to watch this more closely, that is how this plays out in Europe, you need to track the cancel rate of copper warrants on the LME.
If you are bullish on the price of Copper going forward but want to keep it very simple, you are probably actually better off just going with a pure play. But don’t get any of these funds that are merely running and rolling synthetic futures contracts. I believe Sprott still has a physical Copper fund that you can trade on the TSE.
The “Sprott Physical Copper Trust” also trades OTC in the USA as SPHCF.
If you are in the USA, one big thing you should be aware of is that the Sprott trusts are considered PFICs, Passive Foreign Investment Companies. If you hold shares of those in a non-retirement account, you have to file Form 8621 which is not supported by TurboTax. Therefore you have to file a paper tax return and wait a longer time for your refund.
For me this is a deal breaker and so I only hold shares of SPHCF (and its uranium counterpart, SRUUF) in retirement accounts. Hope this helps.
Mike D. – Many thanks for your post as I’ve held in the past in nontaxable accounts.
If you peruse the Sprott site, even though the categories will say Precious Metals or Critical Materials, if you actually look under the hood, they all have some small composition of miners. Hence why this must be activating the PFIC, because these miners are foreign corps. That’s interesting this also extrapolates to physical spot ETF as well.
With that said, unless you are buying a very large amount, you can get physical bars delivered to your home from APMEX or CopperHeadBullion etc. I know right now the 5000g and bigger bars are very hard to get. But 1000g bars are all you can eat.
Or you can just buy copper futures. They can easily be traded now, even Robinhood offers them.
With dramatic swings beginning at the 2023 high of 95, crude oil futures (CL) have corrected to the current 66.5. Along the way down, there have been a lower low and a lower high. I’m guessing at another lower low 59-62.
Why would this happen? Dollar weakness? Supply/demand/growth expectations?
What actually happens will, no doubt, be different. I care because I would like to add to my small collection of oil stocks, but I’m in no hurry.
Rocks, You have been noticing the same thing I have. The correlation is more noticeable with the producers, Why I am avoiding them for now except for trades. The pipeline companies will follow but not as wide in the price swings.
I think all the reasons you gave apply except growth. Too much growth falls into the over supply category. Except for a country or company that is desperate it doesn’t make sense to grow production when demand isn’t keeping up as all you’re doing is flooding the market and pushing the price down. I can see this happening with natural gas.
R2S – Although your overall theory may be correct, the short-term is usually predictable at this time of year. As an 11-year refinery worker, it is turn-around time at the refineries as they selectively shut down plants for repairs. They will soon ramp up production to refill the empty tanks and oil prices will temporarily climb. After the tanks are full, prices tend to decline and level off while awaiting the summer driving season. The most stressful time of the year at many refineries. We had lots of overtime hours getting pipes and tanks ready for service before the plants started back up.
In the past, I bought funds that track oil prices in early March, and then sold them in early April for a decent gain, but I haven’t done it in a while. This might be a good year to start again, but DYODD.
cali-
I’ve been waiting for CL to finish this chart pattern for so long that it’s a joke now. Traders will start a rally on any pretext. I appreciate the seasonality issue. Recently, the backwardation in futures for the rest of the year has risen from 63ish to 65ish, so no help for me there.
Watching CL is more of a hobby than an investment idea. The price of oil and gasoline matters to consumers wallets. On a CPI adjusted basis, the price is not too bad now historically.
https://www.tradingview.com/x/QtimGGY7/
In the comparison of total performance of various etfs to 20 SPX stocks of my choosing that I started in May 2024, PFFA has moved into the #2 spot. If I include IAU (gold), it would be #1 by a big margin.
IAU +28.5%
IBIT +18.9% (Bitcoin)
PFFA +10.9%
19 slices +8.5% (excludes MRNA)
SPY +6.6%
20 slices +4.1%
QQQ +3.7%
TLT +2.5%
A small investment in Bitcoin can be a valuable addition to an income-oriented portfolio. In the long run, Bitcoin is predicted to go to $1.5 million in a few short years, according to a famous tech-stock Guru who was interviewed on Bloomberg today. That’s about $300,000 a year easy money.
In the short run, Bitcoin will make you very happy that you have invested mostly in preferreds and sensible income securities.
If you are a gambler suffering from monetary separation anxiety after betting on a sure-thing, Bitcoin will make you wonder if you should double down to get back to break even. JMO. DYODD.
Bear, all the interest in BC makes me wonder about the value of the dollar yet they still convert BC into whatever currency is needed to exchange the currency for a service or product. So a lot of what someone says is the value of BC is speculation or what the market is willing to pay for 1 BC
I’m old school and the most I am willing to risk is buying a stock of a company that is dealing with gold or silver or making the picks and shovels to get it out of the ground.
In BC case I wouldn’t be surprised more money is being made off selling the chips and the hardware to mine the BC
I normally hedge by increasing cash. I started small test positions in bitcoin and gold during the recent market chaos as portfolio diversifiers and dollar devaluation hedges. Bitcoin was once thought to be uncorrelated to the stock market. No longer. Bitcoin is like SPY high on meth – you can’t taser it down. Frightening to watch money vanish on a down day. Exhilarating to watch it power up returns on a good day.
On the plus side, I got some lavish returns, enough to keep me in the game, though not enough to cover my losses. I suspect Bitcoin was invented by the creators of the Pick-5 lottery. Throw down 12 bucks for your regular card. Lose $10. Win $2 on the Xtra. Feel like a winner. Come back for more. JMO. DYODD.
There are various ways of losing with cryto. I’m down 32% from 4 yrs ago. Unfortunately only had a tiny amount of Bitcoin but more of other junk. A tiny investment overall.
Also sometimes it just disappears. North Koreans stole 1.4 billion in February according to the FBI.
danzeb – Tell me about it. I lost $100K on an Ethereum node project. When all is said and done, outside of bitcoin, the entire crypto sphere especially if you are getting down to meme coins or DEFI networks etc. at best is no different than rolling the dice on the pink sheets for small cap equities. And if you are a large size trader, good luck with exit liquidity. Sure you can see 100% gains in a day but here today, gone today.
That incident you are referring to was from an Ethereum wallet @ Bybit. The CEO goes into the details here. He made good from his own funds!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RG52EZvGD4
Anything outside of BTC is just not worth it. People don’t realize but in the last 16 years now, bitcoin has only had 3 negative return years. On an annualized basis, year-by-year going back to 2010 the annualized performance returns of bitcoin absolutely blows away any other asset classes.
I am still staying out of coins. I am probably missing an opportunity, but I guess I will live with that.
My only investment in the crypto space at the moment is some A shares in a startup that provides services to crypto companies.
Cash positive in their third quarter, profitable by their fourth quarter, growing like mad. Like a money printing machine.
I did some “consulting” for them. I call it “being the adult in the room”. Funny thing I started “consulting” with couple of their founders at a Christmas party at my house a couple of years ago (one of my kids invited them). Mostly just sitting around explaining how companies work, how to do staffing, cash management, etc. Later, I helped them evaluate stuff from some VCs. I thought I was just talking to them as friends, but then they gave me a slug of stock as a “thank you” and asked me to be on their “advisory board”. I guess sometimes it pays to just be nice.
Biggest challenge is recruiting talented people – just can’t get enough fast enough. Same thing I hear from my kids’ about their companies. Still a huge talent shortage in Silicon Valley for skilled software developers. Mountains of resumes floating around – hard to find the good folks in the piles of dross.
BearNJ – Wild to think that even a buy and hold approach would have worked out for bitcoin, now with a near 16 year performance track record (only 3 negative return years.)
Check out these annualized returns. 2010 isn’t even populated because it would be too unfair, probably 10,000%+ just for that one year.
2011: 1,473%
2012: 186%
2013: 5,507%
2014: -58%
2015: 35%
2016: 125%
2017: 1,331%
2018: -73%
2019: 95%
2020: 301%
2021: 66%
2022: -65%
2023: 156%
2024: 121%
I mentioned in November that I bought a tiny position in DOW at 45 for the dividend and that I had a downside target of 32-34. The recent low is 35.48.
This February article from Chemical & Engineering News is not encouraging and may reflect broader problems in the economy.
https://cen.acs.org/business/economy/Dow-cut-1500-jobs-economic/103/i3
Rocks thanks for the link. Hard to believe 2024 was a bad year for Dow and Lyondell and Dow is looking at Europe as a weak market when BASF had an ok year. Maybe the type of chemicals they are in?
Picked up some Target (TGT) pre market. Screened the Dividend Kings this weekend. Target and Exxon came thru my screen as decent buys. Going to hold off on Exxon for now as I have enough oil position. Target has 57 yr dividend raise streak, PE below 12, its current yield is in the rarified air right now. Going against sentiment and starting what I hope a very long term hold here.
I’m picturing Porky wearing a doughboy helmet.
% off recent all-time highs:
WMT -20%
COST -17%
Importers like a strong dollar and no tariffs.
Every week. let alone, each day, Warren’s $334 Billion in Cash Equilivnts, sure looks very smart.
Jim Berkshire Hathaway has enough cash to generate good income off of 4 to 5% interest.
We know that Seeley dosn’t make mattress’ large enough.
I’m close to 20% cash eq. with half in SGOV at 4% and half in WTFCP/M at 7% (ending soon). Is it not enough or too much?
Rocks about the same for me but most backing GTC orders.
From the all-time high, Mag 7 + 4 more.
AAPL -15%
MSFT -19%
AMZN -19%
META -18%
GOOGL -21%
NVDA -29%
TSLA -53%
AVGO -25%
NFLX -16%
NDX -13%
SMH -24%
Ramaco Resources METC reported earnings and revenue beats yesterday. METC is in the business of selling steel-making coal, aka metallurgical coal. The common stock was up 38% today, with a bump from reports of heavier tariffs — for now anyway – on imports of Canadian steel. Ramaco is also working on a rare earth project. JMO. DYODD: tariffs are a two-way street. MET, METCB, METCL, METCZ
NVDA looks interesting 91-100 for technical reasons. At 100 NVDA would be 35% off the all-time high.
Agreed, On it’s last similar fade ( late Aug / Early Sept ), it got down to the $101-ish area. Long term this item should be Good.
I’m not a tech like many, yet once it hits $100 ….. I would guess that mid $90’s is probable.
On that Fall ’24 fade I did open a position @ $102.25 … wanted to add, but off to the races.
Appreciate the post’s.
Rocks, bot a small piece end of day yesterday, just sold for a ~5% gain. Similar mini-trades past week or so w LEN, DHI and STZ. I think it’s a time adjustment behavior of being newly retired . . . this foolishness has got to stop.
News about inflation and tariffs has increased volatility in the stock market. S&P down 7.6% and NASDAQ down 11.5% in the past month. I sold some stocks in the past few weeks but should have sold more. Watching when to jump back in but need to decide what’s overpriced and what’s underpriced.
Shopping didn’t seem to bad today with some prices dropping. Dozen organic eggs $4.49 and gasoline $2.61 with credit card.
The only place I’ve seen eggs that cheap is in the US Government Bureau of Labor Statistics reports where they are priced at 4.95 — that’s where they calculate CPI – which explains why Social Security increases are so low.
Locally eggs are running 7.99 a dozen which was in line with the commodity charts. “Was in line” explained: To my surprise, egg prices began abruptly dropping from 8.22 to 6.04 beginning around March 4, just a few days before The DOJ began investigating farmers for not rebuilding their flocks fast enough. (March 7).
Pro tip: if you paid a $2 surcharge when you bought a genuine New York Egg Cream in Brooklyn, they knew you were a tourist. JMO DYODD.
Average Price: Eggs, Grade A, Large (Cost per Dozen) in U.S. City Average
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU0000708111
This comment just for fun.
TSLA -13+% today, over a 50% haircut from the all-time high. 200 looks possible. Is valuation finally going to matter? Is he still the world’s richest man?
Google has a PE of 20. MSFT, Amazon and Nvda have PEs in the 30s.
TSLA has a PE over 100.
if you value it like a car company its worth $15. toss in a multiplier and you still get values under 50.
I put a few low bids in for Amazon, Google, Microsoft and Nvda. They all hit today. I only bought 30 ish shares or so of each as I feel like we could see lower lows with everything going on. I don’t normally buy common stock only preferreds and bonds.
What are others watching during this pull back?
Tsla gone from high of $360 to $226 in 3 weeks. Wow.
Well Libero, It’s not a stock market, but a market of stocks. I’m watching pharmacy stocks, food related stocks and I can’t catch a break. They are all going up and outside my buy orders. But I refuse to move my price point. I want more BMY but it’s up 35% from what I last paid. I suppose that makes up for losses on my preferred’s
Libero
High div, low P/E Value stocks
Market is in a major rotation from Growth to Value
Westie-
All I can think of is to ask you, “And how many days is this rotation going to last?” LOL
Everything happens much faster than it used to. I don’t think the stock market can function without growth leading. Sometimes it needs to be repriced.
Canada is halting imports from Smithfield Foods SFD, the largest US pork producer. Canada is targeting SFD’s largest plant in North Carolina. The news came as the US announced 250% tariffs on Canadian dairy products. The USDA says the halt is not tariff retaliation, just a “temporary suspension” by Canada. The USDA and SFD are looking to talk. The market will sort this out on Monday. SFD got a pump from the big brokers after its quiet period then drifted lower. It is off about 10% since its IPO.
Trade war targeting is getting better this time around. The Chinese took aim at CHS in farm country with its retaliatory tariffs. Companies are getting sharper too, Hershey HSY, while trying to corner the market in cocoa (90,000 tons) in January, may also avoid future tariffs too.
Not really looking to add any retail food companies right now. Ag may offer some opportunities. JMO. DYODD.
Bear I hadn’t heard anything about CHS but I did see something about China is now slapping tariffs on Canada also
China targeted CHS with some sort of restriction. (“suspension of soybean export qualifications to China”) Its hard to find a detailed US discussion among the headline news. If you want The Party Line (literally), it is below. I haven’t abandoned ship on CHS. Farmers are pretty good at getting through tough times. Also, a bailout is expected just like last time. Oil tariff impact is tbd. Don’t know about China-Canada, but lumber and dairy have been long-time US-Canada disputes. IMHO. JMO. DYODD.
“…the GAC announced the suspension of soybean export qualifications to China for three US companies, including CHS Inc., LOUIS DREYFUS COMPANY GRAINS MERCHANDISING LLC, and EGT LLC, due to recent detections of ergot and seed-coated soybeans in imported US soybeans….The move is based on the country’s food safety law…to protect the health of Chinese consumers and ensure the safety of imported grain… ”
http://en.people.cn/n3/2025/0305/c90000-20284648.html
Bear,
“Something is rotten in the state of Denmark” University Of Wisconsin.
https://pddc.wisc.edu/2015/07/23/ergot/#:~:text=Use%20crops%20that%20are%20not,be%20more%20susceptible%20to%20infection.
Soybeans are in the pea / legume family, not in the grains family.
Maybe processed on the same machinery for oils that grains are processed on?
Fascinating info and a great find. Suggests China could back away here without looking like it is backing down once the technical issue is fixed. (A Clorox wipe on the equipment and a standard disclosure like “soybeans processed on machinery that also processes rye.” )
OT – Not rotten in Denmark, but in Norway and France. There is a history on ergot going back to the Middle Ages and up to the 50’s in France. Say “ergot” to any 60’s Hippie and he will say LSD. Ergot causes hallucinations and is the main ingredient in LSD. It also causes nasty side effects. JMO. DYODD.
Raising my hand.
Any focus on Corn / Wheat products. Both been down recently with all the T-News.
Saw an interesting item over weekend on WEAT ( Wheat focused ETF ).
A Chinese company owns Smithfield. So, Canada is hurting China ?
Venture Global VG a recent IPO touted as a bet on the booming US LNG export market announced an expansion at one of its projects, making it the largest project in North America. VG was down a bit today after earlier news of cost over-runs at that project. JMO. DYODD.