rkbabang

I wish I had the time to read every post to this board. I tend to follow certain topics, basically stocks I own or are interested in + some general topics that interest me. I probably miss a ton of good discussions and ideas in the topics I don't read, but there is only so much time in a day. My goto link is "activity -> unread content" then I click on the topics of interest.

Ouch! I own some 2025 $12.5 calls which are down substantially today.

I think grocery stores will be the last physical retailers to get rid of human cashiers. I don't mind going through self checkout if I have 3-5 items, but for a weeks worth of groceries, I'd just assume stand there and wait while someone else rings it all in and bags it.

Since no one can predict the price of natural gas (that being the topic) we might as well talk about cooking. Wok cooking would be a downside to induction, but I never use a wok and don't own one. I have all induction compatible pans with flat bottoms. The only gas exposure I have in my portfolio is WMB. I've owned it for a few years and it pays a nice dividend 5.8% at it's current price, but my cost basis is $24 so 7.3% on my initial investment.

induction > gas > electric. I switched to induction ranges and will never go back. You get the same instant control you get on gas with quicker more powerful heating. And nothing gets hot except the pan. If a little kid turns on a burner which has no pan on it nothing happens.

Exactly, the Fabian society has had a long term plan for over a century to turn the planet into a prison ruled by the elites. That is why I specifically said that I’m talking about the US.

No, neither. The right has traditionally been more an enemy of freedom than the left, it is only the last 10-15 years or so that the left has been far worse. So much so that it is easy to forget that the right used to be the main enemy of freedom, especially if you are somewhat young. (I’m talking about in the US, not Europe or Asia).

Probably disabled by your company for your protection.

Those on the right can often be more oppressive than even the extreme left. The book that @Dave86ch recommended somewhere on CoBF explains this quite well and is worth the read. It's called "The Network State" (https://thenetworkstate.com/) (https://www.amazon.com/Network-State-How-Start-Country-ebook/dp/B09VPKZR3G) Both the left and the right can be broke into two groups, the people of the state, and the people of the network. On a topic like Bitcoin the people of the network (on both the left and the right) will hold similar views and the people of the state (on the left and the right) will hold similar views. The people of the network tend to be younger (on average) and the people of the state tend to be older. The network is the 3rd leviathan (religion being the first and the state being the 2nd). The transition from the 1st to the 2nd (called the Renaissance, industrial revolution, ...) has been complete for a while in the western world, not so much in other parts of the world. The transition from the 2nd to the 3rd has barely begun. The next hundred years or so is going to be an interesting time indeed for humanity as the transition is made.

That sucks, try to convince your company to use Fidelity for your 401K. My company uses Fidelity and it has the normal selection of funds or you can transfer the money into what they call 401K Brokerage Link and invest it into anything that you could in an IRA, even options (buy calls/puts, write covered calls and cash backed puts).

Yes, when you are praising The People's Republic of China for cracking down on the freedom of individuals to transact freely and wish your government would do the same, you really should examine your thinking a little more.

His analysis is done based on the number of wallets with >0.01 BTC in them ($220 at $22K/BTC), which makes much more sense to me than using the total number of BTC which is arbitrary.

I agree. Metcalfe has something to do with it, but not only isn’t it the whole story, but using the number of Bitcoins as the nodes in the calculation rather than the number of users is a mistake. By this method Dogecoin with its unlimited supply should be worth far more than Bitcoin. Bitcoin is, among other things, like a digital gold. Gold doesn’t become more valuable every time a new ounce of it is mined. Scarcity creates value in a money or store of value, adding more doesn’t create more value, rather it does the opposite. The network is the humans (or companies, governments, smart contracts, etc) using it, not the number of units in existence.

Would you rather own a useful asset that many people worship or a useful asset that nobody worships? People worshiped gold at times too and look how long that remained valuable to humans. That said, you don't need to spend a lot of time listening to the preachers, you just need to understand that they exist, and in large numbers.

It also gives us the opportunity to profit from the beliefs of others. Don't be part of the flock, be the preacher living in a 15,000 sqft mansion. Don't be the voter, be the guy selling the state $10,000 screwdrivers, or invest in the company that does. Don't worship Satashi and his blockchain, but recognize that belief in others and add some to your portfolio. I don't always succeed, but I try as hard as I can to be an atheist in all things. “belief is the death of intelligence.” ― Robert Anton Wilson “I don't believe anything, but I have many suspicions.” ― Robert Anton Wilson

Jan 2025 Overstock $40 calls

I don't think anyone is saying anyone _has_ to buy anything. The only difference is that you can discuss Berkshire here without someone chiming in that it's Rat Poison. And you can discuss AJ Gallagher here without people coming out of the woodwork saying its all a Ponzi scheme and worth nothing. Some things cause more heated debates than others. I've also owned Berkshire for over 20 years and I've never once had someone tell me quite confidently that it was worthless.

Well yeah, never go completely into any quasi-religious group of people obsessing about anything (value investing / Buffet-Munger worshipers included). As people become less religious in the traditional sense there is a type of personality that looks for someone or something else to deify and get all fundamentalist about. I don't want to bring politics into it, but you can see it there very easily, the more likely someone is to be a so-called "atheist" the more likely they are to practically worship the state as the god that can do/create/accomplish anything with a word (I'm looking at you Dawkins). Same with the bitcoin worshipers or any of the many people/things/groups some people worship. There is a type of person, for example, who will never give a moments thought to crypto because their god who can never be wrong called it "rat poison". It's usually best to not get bogged down with these people on any topic. Once you spot them they are easy to recognize.

This is true and if you invest a substantial amount for 40-50 years you will do just fine even if you underperform the market a little bit. The problem is that I think even investors who invest in index funds usually vastly underperform the market. They start putting money in close to the top after hearing everyone talking about stocks and then get scared and pull everything out after each crash. The only way to make market returns with an index fund is to keep your money in there and to dollar cost average new money in consistently. That itself takes discipline that most don't have.

+1 Bitcoin is getting bigger and will be a much harder asset to manipulate in the future and probably isn't that easy to manipulate now. That wasn't the case in 2013. There are a lot of microcap stocks that are far easier to manipulate than Bitcoin.

Yes I’ve heard the Tether theories for the 2017 run up, but that isn’t even what he is alleging this time, his allegation is that when Bitcoin gets too low people are buying it and the price goes back up. Like, yeah, no shit, I do that too.

Agreed, I’m not rich compared to anyone moving markets, but the behavior is the same. Buy low, sell high. If that behavior is immoral, then I am guilty.

"the manipulator or manipulators agree that every time the price drops to a target level, they’ll jump in to push it well above that benchmark." So this guy's theory is that every time the price drops some people with money rush in to buy it pushing the price up. I agree that is most probably happening. Buying when something is low and stopping your buys once the price rises, some people call that "manipulation" others just call it investing. There are lots of times I start buying something when the price drops and then stop buying it when the price rises again, then if it rises enough I sell. I guess I'm part of the manipulation cabal.

I've been wrong enough times in my life to know that I'm not infallible. The great thing about investing is that it's hard to lie to yourself. When you are correct you make money and when you are wrong you lose money. It's pretty hard to say, "Yeah, I lost 90% of my investment, but I still think that I was correct".