Have We Hit The Top?

[Eldad]

This afternoon got pretty savage. 
 

I mean I voted for Trump, but I am still anticipating only a slightly better shit show than last time. The expectations of this next term are through the roof. Get ready for the let down. Market at 30x earnings, crapcoin over 100k, what could go wrong? Hahaha. 

[Fly]

Russ Napier interview

https://themarket.ch/interview/russell-napier-we-are-headed-towards-a-system-of-national-capitalism-ld.12718

[Jaygo]

3 hours ago, Fly said:

Russ Napier interview

https://themarket.ch/interview/russell-napier-we-are-headed-towards-a-system-of-national-capitalism-ld.12718

 

This guy makes my skin crawl. I dread the idea of modern politicians listening to his ideas and thinking its time they "saved" the world. I dont know him personally so its not a affront to his character but economists like him are dangerous imo.  

 

When I think of great regions and eras it is always laissez faire at the heart of it. 

 

[Dalal.Holdings]

The Top feels close.

[Dalal.Holdings]

 

 

[Spekulatius]

1 hour ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

 

 

Black holes are singularities too.

[UK]

https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2024/12/22/just-how-frothy-is-americas-stockmarket

[Gregmal]

On 12/8/2024 at 9:39 AM, Gregmal said:

I sold the XRP as it was really just a trade, but I still have all my Ripple Labs shares minus a few that have been tendered. You start doing a little math on the Ripple balance sheet which holds XRP and is cash flow positive…an IPO would be fun.

Ripple now tendering for another 5% of shares at $125 per share. Roughly $25b valuation. 

[Gregmal]

And while my shitty private crypto company keeps stuffing cash in my pockets, CNBC pumping articles about how “Wall Street Likes These Bonds For Strong 2025 Income”….

 

Huh? Isn’t bond income just income? What you get is what you get….if I buy a 6% bond, that’s not “strong”, that is what I signed up for….

[LC]

On 12/23/2024 at 9:24 PM, Gregmal said:

And while my shitty private crypto company keeps stuffing cash in my pockets, CNBC pumping articles about how “Wall Street Likes These Bonds For Strong 2025 Income”….

 

Huh? Isn’t bond income just income? What you get is what you get….if I buy a 6% bond, that’s not “strong”, that is what I signed up for….

Oh it’s bad and some people really eat it up. My old man who is at this point deliberately clueless about financial education just bought 6zeros of an annuity because “it’s a guaranteed 3% and he doesn’t have to think about it and doesn’t need the money”.

 

Honestly I thought the annuity biz was destined to dry up as a naturally inferior product…this is what I get for overestimating the average Americans intelligence

[Blugolds]

24 minutes ago, LC said:

Oh it’s bad and some people really eat it up. My old man who is at this point deliberately clueless about financial education just bought 6zeros of an annuity because “it’s a guaranteed 3% and he doesn’t have to think about it and doesn’t need the money”.

 

Honestly I thought the annuity biz was destined to dry up as a naturally inferior product…this is what I get for overestimating the average Americans intelligence

 

People sell Whole life insurance policies as "investments" every day too..

 

"if you sell it, they will come" 

[Gregmal]

12 minutes ago, Blugolds said:

 

People sell Whole life insurance policies as "investments" every day too..

 

"if you sell it, they will come" 

There’s people who guaranteed astronomical returns in the private REIT space or in crypto that talked the game and had the investments work out and now live happily ever after while good, honest jabronis with CFAs ran long/short value strategies and get sued for losing money because the index went up hugely. These careers are 15% skill, 50% luck, and 35% salesmanship.

[Red Lion]

1 hour ago, LC said:

Oh it’s bad and some people really eat it up. My old man who is at this point deliberately clueless about financial education just bought 6zeros of an annuity because “it’s a guaranteed 3% and he doesn’t have to think about it and doesn’t need the money”.

 

Honestly I thought the annuity biz was destined to dry up as a naturally inferior product…this is what I get for overestimating the average Americans intelligence

 

I thought rates were close to 6 on most fixed annuities today? 

 

Annuities are superior products for a handful of reasons, usually related to great deferred tax treatment for some taxable legal settlements and plaintiff attorney legal fees. If a plaintiff lawyer in a high tax state makes $10 million in a year but elects to roll it tax deferred into a 5.5% annuity that's the equivalent to an 11% low risk ROI which then probably also gets taxed at a lower bracket as the payments are received. Similar concept with a taxable legal settlement.

 

I feel like they could also play a valuable role in a high net worth portfolio in lieu of muni bonds based on how the math works out head to head. 

 

Agreed that they're inferior for most other purposes.

 

[james22]

Encouraging.

 

But what we're missing here is that we've had decades of just sitting on our asses, leveraging cheaper labor versus going out of our way to really push the boundaries of engineering and manufacturing. And now that we have a company that's willing to do that because the leader is viewing that as a first principles approach to manufacturing, right? Instead of like, okay, cheap labor is good, but why aren’t we pushing manufacturing and engineering as much as we can to make this as efficient and as productive as possible?

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/musk-led-manufacturing-revolution-nobody-talking-about

[Blake Hampton]

 

Quantity of money per unit of output (I used assets at the FED instead of M2) relative to the implicit price index. Unfortunately, the measurement for total assets at the FED only goes back to 2003.

Edited December 27, 2024 by Blake Hampton

[gfp]

1 hour ago, Blake Hampton said:

 

Quantity of money per unit of output (I used assets at the FED instead of M2) relative to the implicit price index. Unfortunately, the measurement for total assets at the FED only goes back to 2003.

 

What is the significance of this chart?  What are you trying to convey to us here?

[Blake Hampton]

23 hours ago, gfp said:

 

What is the significance of this chart?  What are you trying to convey to us here?

 

 

This is a better chart that goes back to 1959.

 

It shows how dramatic the rise in base money has been relative to inflation. I don't really think it has that much significance, I just thought it was interesting.

Edited December 28, 2024 by Blake Hampton

[Dalal.Holdings]

 

All those boomers putting it all in the index have no idea how concentrated they really are

 

[Blake Hampton]

34 minutes ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

All those boomers putting it all in the index have no idea how concentrated they really are

Now imagine that their portfolio is probably split 60/40...

My father-in-law, who is 59 years old, has nearly his entire net worth invested in the following:

- Large-cap US equities: 40%

- 30-year government bonds: 40%

- Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co (GT): 20%

 

His advisors are a group of morons.

Edited December 29, 2024 by Blake Hampton

[Dalal.Holdings]

The more blind “passive” money the top 10 stocks get, the more they can freely abuse their shareholders. Excessive stock based comp…the hidden tax on investors is the easiest way. The employees, from the execs on down, can compensate themselves lavishly because their shareholders are passively throwing money at them…the agency problem run amok.

 

Passive investing means the investors will take it lying down…

[Spooky]

16 hours ago, Dalal.Holdings said:

The more blind “passive” money the top 10 stocks get, the more they can freely abuse their shareholders. Excessive stock based comp…the hidden tax on investors is the easiest way. The employees, from the execs on down, can compensate themselves lavishly because their shareholders are passively throwing money at them…the agency problem run amok.

 

Passive investing means the investors will take it lying down…

 

Aren't active managers also concentrating in these positions? They don't seem to mind the share based comp....

[John Hjorth]

10 minutes ago, Spooky said:

Aren't active managers also concentrating in these positions? They don't seem to mind the share based comp....

 

@Spooky,

 

It's certainly an interesting question, thank you for that. Personally, I'll try to swing by at Dataroma to take a look at what's there, from your proposed specific angle. It's pretty easy to do there, for those included there, because of the database stucture in the website data.

Edited December 29, 2024 by John Hjorth

[Junior R]

maybe the coming earning season those over priced stocks will contract as earnings gives investors a reality check

Edited December 29, 2024 by Junior R

[Dalal.Holdings]

57 minutes ago, Spooky said:

 

Aren't active managers also concentrating in these positions? They don't seem to mind the share based comp....

 

Active managers are dumb for different reasons. Lots of “sophisticated” active money is now just momentum chasing

[Gregmal]

The “smart money” active guys are great at maximizing their earnings. Only a fool believes that these guys actually have “maximize investor returns” as a top priority.