Investing in the stock market - Discussion

[DonaldBrashear]

The number of people I've seen post things like "Maxed out my credit cards cash advance and went all in on ______________ #YOLO" is shocking. This is not going to end well and if it gets too big it will take the economy down with it. Imagine the next generation of youth being labeled "The bankrupt generation" because they all declare bankruptcy. It seems like the 19 year olds have figured out that they can take $10k from a credit card and put it all in gamestop or bitcoin and become rich. What could possibly go wrong.

Edited April 17, 2021 by DonaldBrashear

[Boudrias]

14 hours ago, DonaldBrashear said:

The number of people I've seen post things like "Maxed out my credit cards cash advance and went all in on ______________ #YOLO" is shocking. This is not going to end well and if it gets too big it will take the economy down with it. Imagine the next generation of youth being labeled "The bankrupt generation" because they all declare bankruptcy. It seems like the 19 year olds have figured out that they can take $10k from a credit card and put it all in gamestop or bitcoin and become rich. What could possibly go wrong.

I agree! Remember in the aftermath of the 2008 crisis when finance people came forward and said how close it came to a complete meltdown. The old saying that it works until it doesn't will likely be vindicated. When people lose confidence in their government, financial system and their society as a whole, look out. 

[Tortorella's Rant]

19 hours ago, DonaldBrashear said:

The number of people I've seen post things like "Maxed out my credit cards cash advance and went all in on ______________ #YOLO" is shocking. This is not going to end well and if it gets too big it will take the economy down with it. Imagine the next generation of youth being labeled "The bankrupt generation" because they all declare bankruptcy. It seems like the 19 year olds have figured out that they can take $10k from a credit card and put it all in gamestop or bitcoin and become rich. What could possibly go wrong.

Seemingly more than a few people did that after reading the sob stories on Reddit. 

[DonaldBrashear]

5 hours ago, Boudrias said:

When people lose confidence in their government, financial system and their society as a whole, look out. 

This is why, for the first time in my life, I am partially invested in gold. The writing is definitely on the wall. The way I figure it, either way, people have already lost confidence in the stock market and governments. It is only a matter of time before this becomes obvious. Gold seems like a solid bet these days without much risk. I've also added to my oil investments. Basically, commodities are all I feel safe investing in now. I can't sit in cash but I also can't bring myself to invest in the stock market.

[DonaldBrashear]

I hear that on April 20th (4/20 of course) there will be up to 3 ETF's hitting the TSX which will provide direct access to crypto (Ether). I fully expect these to soar in price. All that RRSP/TFSA money can now flow freely into crypto. This is going to inflate crypto prices.

 

This is scary to me. Why? Because ETF's only trade during certain business hours, but crypto trades 24/7/365. Seems like an absolute dream for the market makers. Imagine having your money locked into a crypto ETF on a long weekend. They have 3 days to create fear and panic. They dump the price of crypto. Then on Monday, all hell breaks loose. Can you say "Black Monday"?

 

 

[nuckin_futz]

 

Quite the Crypto implosion this evening. At the low BTC was $50,500.

 

I see a little deleveraging coming.

[Warhippy]

2 minutes ago, nuckin_futz said:

 

Quite the Crypto implosion this evening. At the low BTC was $50,500.

 

I see a little deleveraging coming.

I wonder why this is happening.

 

Meanwhile block chain companies seem to still be doing ok

 

Any advice or suggestions on why or how to manage?

[nuckin_futz]

7 minutes ago, Warhippy said:

I wonder why this is happening.

 

Meanwhile block chain companies seem to still be doing ok

 

Any advice or suggestions on why or how to manage?

There really isn't any news. Rumours of US Treasury charging several financial institutions for money laundering using crypto. But nothing concrete.

 

No advice. I don't play in this space for a reason.

 

With a total market cap of about 2 trillion, a 10% loss across the board is a wipe out of about $200 Billion. That's going to bleed into other areas of finance.

 

A rather boring month might have just got kind of exciting.

Edited April 18, 2021 by nuckin_futz

[Russ]

11 hours ago, DonaldBrashear said:

I hear that on April 20th (4/20 of course) there will be up to 3 ETF's hitting the TSX which will provide direct access to crypto (Ether). I fully expect these to soar in price. All that RRSP/TFSA money can now flow freely into crypto. This is going to inflate crypto prices.

 

This is scary to me. Why? Because ETF's only trade during certain business hours, but crypto trades 24/7/365. Seems like an absolute dream for the market makers. Imagine having your money locked into a crypto ETF on a long weekend. They have 3 days to create fear and panic. They dump the price of crypto. Then on Monday, all hell breaks loose. Can you say "Black Monday"?

 

 

 

I will see how my BTCC and QETH are looking on Monday morning in my TFSA lol

[Boudrias]

13 hours ago, DonaldBrashear said:

I hear that on April 20th (4/20 of course) there will be up to 3 ETF's hitting the TSX which will provide direct access to crypto (Ether). I fully expect these to soar in price. All that RRSP/TFSA money can now flow freely into crypto. This is going to inflate crypto prices.

 

This is scary to me. Why? Because ETF's only trade during certain business hours, but crypto trades 24/7/365. Seems like an absolute dream for the market makers. Imagine having your money locked into a crypto ETF on a long weekend. They have 3 days to create fear and panic. They dump the price of crypto. Then on Monday, all hell breaks loose. Can you say "Black Monday"?

 

 

I am holding gold but no crypto. Getting any of this in a crisis will likely not happen.

 

ETF’s are scary because of their parameters they have to trade in a robo manner. Increases volatility and feeds pricing extremes. Try not being a trader but an investor in specific companies. Cash flow thru dividends is a bottom line thing to me. 
 

v

Vast majority of Canadians have never experienced a serious threat. Canada dodged 2008, mainly because of oil earnings. Covid is as close as we have come to crisis. The financial fallout will be devastating.

[DonaldBrashear]

18 hours ago, nuckin_futz said:

There really isn't any news. Rumours of US Treasury charging several financial institutions for money laundering using crypto. But nothing concrete.

 

No advice. I don't play in this space for a reason.

 

With a total market cap of about 2 trillion, a 10% loss across the board is a wipe out of about $200 Billion. That's going to bleed into other areas of finance.

 

A rather boring month might have just got kind of exciting.

It only took a sale of about $8 billion in bitcoin to trigger a $250 billion drop in market value. This goes to show how only so many people will end up getting out with money, and those left behind will be the bag holders. Sort of like what happened when gamestop plunged.

 

I can't believe ANYONE out there would think that countries (especially the USA) are going to sit by and let bitcoin exist. The crackdown will be hard but also be unified. I bet all the world governments come together and collectively ban bitcoin including Europe. They will make it illegal for any banks to allow bitcoin transactions and any credit card companies to process purchases. That basically will kill it.

 

That's the problem with bitcoin... people say it is independent and stuff but it relies on existing monetary systems to function. No one talks price in Bitcoin... it would be impossible. People use USD to negotiate a price and then convert that into bitcoin. So bitcoin relies on USD to find its value and that works because USD is stable. Bitcoin cannot function at this point in time without integration and it is going to get shut down hard.

[Tortorella's Rant]

37 minutes ago, DonaldBrashear said:

It only took a sale of about $8 billion in bitcoin to trigger a $250 billion drop in market value. This goes to show how only so many people will end up getting out with money, and those left behind will be the bag holders. Sort of like what happened when gamestop plunged.

 

I can't believe ANYONE out there would think that countries (especially the USA) are going to sit by and let bitcoin exist. The crackdown will be hard but also be unified. I bet all the world governments come together and collectively ban bitcoin including Europe. They will make it illegal for any banks to allow bitcoin transactions and any credit card companies to process purchases. That basically will kill it.

 

That's the problem with bitcoin... people say it is independent and stuff but it relies on existing monetary systems to function. No one talks price in Bitcoin... it would be impossible. People use USD to negotiate a price and then convert that into bitcoin. So bitcoin relies on USD to find its value and that works because USD is stable. Bitcoin cannot function at this point in time without integration and it is going to get shut down hard.

Then why are guys like Elon putting so much stock into it unless it is all simply a ruse. 

[Tortorella's Rant]

22 hours ago, DonaldBrashear said:

I hear that on April 20th (4/20 of course) there will be up to 3 ETF's hitting the TSX which will provide direct access to crypto (Ether). I fully expect these to soar in price. All that RRSP/TFSA money can now flow freely into crypto. This is going to inflate crypto prices.

 

This is scary to me. Why? Because ETF's only trade during certain business hours, but crypto trades 24/7/365. Seems like an absolute dream for the market makers. Imagine having your money locked into a crypto ETF on a long weekend. They have 3 days to create fear and panic. They dump the price of crypto. Then on Monday, all hell breaks loose. Can you say "Black Monday"?

 

 

I'm in the ETF. Not a ton thankfully. I think it's too big a player to not be invested a little bit in it. I might switch to the actual coin itself and then be able to buy and sell whenever because I don't like the idea of being restricted in that regard either; but I bought and sold on Coinbase some BCH and it was simple enough - didn't need a wallet.
 

22 hours ago, DonaldBrashear said:

This is why, for the first time in my life, I am partially invested in gold. The writing is definitely on the wall. The way I figure it, either way, people have already lost confidence in the stock market and governments. It is only a matter of time before this becomes obvious. Gold seems like a solid bet these days without much risk. I've also added to my oil investments. Basically, commodities are all I feel safe investing in now. I can't sit in cash but I also can't bring myself to invest in the stock market.

WS invested their porfolios in gold last fall, near its peak, and it has done absolutely nothing but bring the entire value of the portfolio down. It has been in a free fall and looks like crap. Theoretically, I get the point of it, but its actual performance is garbage. 

[DonaldBrashear]

44 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

Then why are guys like Elon putting so much stock into it unless it is all simply a ruse. 

I mean, Elon Musk put $1 billion dollars into it (technically, Tesla did). Not sure I would consider that "so much stock". Tesla has a market cap of like 600 billion.... so buying 1 billion in bitcoin was probably more a publicity stunt. If you only have 1/600th of your wealth in bitcoin then no worries

[Lancaster]

2 hours ago, DonaldBrashear said:

I mean, Elon Musk put $1 billion dollars into it (technically, Tesla did). Not sure I would consider that "so much stock". Tesla has a market cap of like 600 billion.... so buying 1 billion in bitcoin was probably more a publicity stunt. If you only have 1/600th of your wealth in bitcoin then no worries

If BTC fails to catch on, he can say that he was experimenting with something for the future.

Should BTC revolutionizes things... he will appear as a genius for being a relatively early adopter.  

[DonaldBrashear]

55 minutes ago, Lancaster said:

If BTC fails to catch on, he can say that he was experimenting with something for the future.

Should BTC revolutionizes things... he will appear as a genius for being a relatively early adopter.  

Plus after he bought bitcoin and announced it, the stock price went way up. So immediately he is in the green. It's like what Warren Buffet does (except he does it much more legally in news announcements). Or like when Oprah bought a ton of weight watchers stock then said she loved bread then sold it all off for a huge profit. The rich get richer. That money came from somewhere. Every dollar Elon makes is a dollar someone else lost.

 

 

[Boudrias]

9 hours ago, DonaldBrashear said:

Plus after he bought bitcoin and announced it, the stock price went way up. So immediately he is in the green. It's like what Warren Buffet does (except he does it much more legally in news announcements). Or like when Oprah bought a ton of weight watchers stock then said she loved bread then sold it all off for a huge profit. The rich get richer. That money came from somewhere. Every dollar Elon makes is a dollar someone else lost.

 

 

Do you think crypto + blockchain gives government a better option to track money (bitcoin)? No more hockey bags full of cash into casinos in Vancouver if block chain tells you where it came from and who owns it. So many crypto options that I question the store of value when there is no restriction to entrants. The full impact of block chain is just beginning to be realized. 

[DonaldBrashear]

47 minutes ago, Boudrias said:

Do you think crypto + blockchain gives government a better option to track money (bitcoin)? No more hockey bags full of cash into casinos in Vancouver if block chain tells you where it came from and who owns it. So many crypto options that I question the store of value when there is no restriction to entrants. The full impact of block chain is just beginning to be realized. 

Yeah but that bag of cash had to be laundered somehow which meant taxes. The IRS/CRA are happy to collect taxes on illegal profits. Imagine if bitcoin became an accepted payment method for real estate transactions. I am sure the criminals are much happier with bitcoin than carrying around bags of cash. You can't carry a bag of cash on a plane or cross borders with it, but you can easily carry bitcoin anywhere. Bitcoin is loved by criminals.

[NucksPatsFan]

Viacom revenue in 2020 around 22 bill, current market cap at today's price around 25 bill. Nibbled some here at 38.10

[themcdeal]

1 hour ago, DonaldBrashear said:

Yeah but that bag of cash had to be laundered somehow which meant taxes. The IRS/CRA are happy to collect taxes on illegal profits. Imagine if bitcoin became an accepted payment method for real estate transactions. I am sure the criminals are much happier with bitcoin than carrying around bags of cash. You can't carry a bag of cash on a plane or cross borders with it, but you can easily carry bitcoin anywhere. Bitcoin is loved by criminals.

Accept the fact where you can track every transaction lol 

This is an old b.s narrative which may have been true years ago when BTC was much less known and investigators didnt have the tools to track it

Edited April 19, 2021 by themcdeal