What are you buying today?

[Red Lion]

1 minute ago, 73 Reds said:

@Red Lion Even the scenario you posted requires context.  How much of the $3-$4 million portfolio is comprised of capital gains?  How long did it take you to build that portfolio?  If you're still "young", why can't you do it again (and again)?   If you're competent, both your income level and investment skills will likely continue to improve over time.  

 

I agree, I was referring to the multimillionaire early retiree comment. I have no immediate plans to retire, really looking to take back my quality of life and focus some more on hobbies and travel and continue to pursue money making ventures. But if I was part of the FIRE crowd planning to travel the world and never work a job or entrepreneurial pursuit again, I'd need closer to $10 million to sleep well at night. I'm sure that number drops quite a bit when there's not a 25 year gap until medicare/ss eligibility, but the longer out of the workforce I'd imagine the harder it is to actually earn a significant income. 

[Eldad]

What a day. Have not gotten crap done at work. I think I’m done for today unless we get a big drop at the close. Have to remember, it still isn’t even close to historically cheap. 
 

MSFT, TXN, CSWI, MCO, AME, UNP

[Spooky]

12 minutes ago, Eldad said:

What a day. Have not gotten crap done at work. I think I’m done for today unless we get a big drop at the close. Have to remember, it still isn’t even close to historically cheap. 
 

MSFT, TXN, CSWI, MCO, AME, UNP

 

Ya keep some dry powder in case some real bargains pop up.

[Gregmal]

35 minutes ago, LC said:

 

Welcome to Fraser-alley. Cheap prices but a sketchy neighborhood.

Is it really anything other than being long volatility and wagering Jane is only half retard at these levels?

[tnathan]

more NVO and RDDT OWL and opened a position in H and APG

Edited April 4, 2025 by tnathan

[FCharlie]

It's nice to see so much posting on this page today with the Fear & Greed Index at 4. These are most likely some outstanding purchases/trades you guys are all making today.

 

https://www.cnn.com/markets/fear-and-greed?utm_source=hp

[LC]

11 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Is it really anything other than being long volatility and wagering Jane is only half retard at these levels?

 

Bingo - certainly micro factors are at play (headcount reduction, management promising buyback, stable LOBs undervalued by market). But ultimately yes, we're just shooting for half-retarded here.

[Red Lion]

Big add to OWL as well. 

[dipod]

SCHD, C. Will buy more as things get more beaten down. Also looking at OXY and more NVO. 

[Castanza]

META, GOOGL, NVO, FRFHF, BX, NTDOY

Edited April 4, 2025 by Castanza

[Paarslaars]

1 hour ago, Red Lion said:

 

Most of my savings have occurred at a ~45% tax rate due to swings in earnings. Retirement accounts help, but if you have a variable income and have a big year there's not that many good places to invest a significant percent pretax. 

 

One of the biggest differences country to country I suspect is the ability to get social healthcare upon early retirement. If you're 40 and want to pull $100,000 a year you might want an investment portfolio of $3-$4 million depending on risk tolerance. But if you have a family in the USA you can expect to spend $30-$35k in health insurance premiums. Then probably $20k in property taxes and insurance (assuming you've managed to payoff a home in one of the coastal states). Then another $15-$20k in groceries assuming you're cooking healthy food at home. Then you'll be paying capital gains and dividend taxes on your investment portfolio. Probably about another $10k. Since you're a multimillionaire your kids are going to get hit with full price on college education which you either need to pay yourself, or set your kids up at a significant disadvantage to the 70% of kids that get huge subsidies. You could obviously reduce these numbers if you didn't have a family or if you want to live in Oklahoma. 

 

Anyway, in the above scenario, I'd be sweating a $500k unrealized loss not to mention a $million. 

 

Interesting perspective.

I would be way more comfortable losing 0.5M at 2M because I know 1.5M is enough for early retirement here, rather than losing 100k at 500k because that's a 20% setback on the way to 1.5M. But yeah country with free healthcare and university... makes a big difference. Also capital gains are taxed at 10%...

 

Ontopic: got back into APO today.

 

Edited April 4, 2025 by Paarslaars

[Masterofnone]

A good slug of SPY in a tax exempt account at the end of the day, a few ticks above the low. Just a short-term trade looking at a relief bump. A weekends worth of news cycle in this environment could do about anything, but the pressure would seem to be for assurances.

[WayWardCloud]

I'm really excited for this (too much? too soon?)

I was 85% stocks 15% bonds at the start of the year and I'm 120% stocks today using IBKR margin account.

I hear you all on it's just the beginning keep some dry powder blablabla, no idea where the bottom is and I might be early, but what I don't get the narrative that things are still expensive? For example Alphabet is at a 12 years valuation low. So I'm putting out the bucket, not the thimble. Max I'd be comfortable with would be 130% long with 10% in LEAPS so I'm not fully pedal to the metal yet but close. Please let me know if I'm being an absolute idiot. I think 5 years from now we will look back on some of today's opportunities as the good old days.

 

 

 

PS: swapped out of LVMH.

[brobro777]

Spx is only like -13% YTD but buying quality stuff here is probably a good idea

 

NTDOY didn't hit $14 today tho, dat sux

[aws]

Bought some NKE, M, and closed my short on NVDA. I will also get assigned on DIS, STNE, and META short puts that expired today.

[Red Lion]

18 minutes ago, Paarslaars said:

Ontopic: got back into APO today.

Best of luck to you, and I suspect you do really well on this over a few years timeframe. 

[73 Reds]

6 minutes ago, WayWardCloud said:

I'm really excited for this (too much? too soon?)

I was 85% stocks 15% bonds at the start of the year and I'm 120% stocks today using IBKR margin account.

I hear you all on it's just the beginning keep some dry powder blablabla, no idea where the bottom is and I might be early, but what I don't get the narrative that things are still expensive? For example Alphabet is at a 12 years valuation low. So I'm putting out the bucket, not the thimble. Max I'd be comfortable with would be 130% long with 10% in LEAPS so I'm not fully pedal to the metal yet but close. Please let me know if I'm being an absolute idiot. I think 5 years from now we will look back on some of today's opportunities as the good old days.

 

 

 

PS: swapped out of LVMH.

No issue here with your portfolio mix but that isn't the only issue.  What are your means?  Are you prepared in the event of a margin call?  

[thepupil]

I have felt zero compulsion to buy much of anything.

 

most stuff has lost 3 months to 1 year of gains. The fundamental picture and degree of certainty seems far worse. 
 

Illiquid stuff I own isn’t down. RE isn’t down. 
 

and high quality stuff is down a teensy bit. Maybe GOOG is a little

tempting, but I’m a little sheepish on the AI front there. 

 

Sentiment feels bad in terms of violence but not in terms of absolute valuations.

 

i could just be scarred from covid where I was dumb and loaded up on the wrong stuff early and got bailed out by everything else selling off which allowed for healthy rotation/doversification. But alternative histories exist where I’d have blown myself up and impaired my capital because I was overly cavalier regarding the degree to which the world had potentially changed. 

 

what I’ve also discovered in the last two days is I also suck at being hedged. Made an immaterial $$$ and got out of those index shorts in hurry. Being short 100% of my taxable account I. Indices for all of two days massively increased degree to which I watched the screens. It mitigated losses while somehow increasing my stress. Not for me.

 

So long way of saying, I’m doing jack until something slaps me in the face as obvious.

[WayWardCloud]

23 minutes ago, 73 Reds said:

No issue here with your portfolio mix but that isn't the only issue.  What are your means?  Are you prepared in the event of a margin call?  

Thanks for taking the time to answer!

I value your opinion.

 

The above is my entire net worth. The condo is up for sale but unfortunately I won't see that money until maybe a year from now so I can't count on it in this dip. The 120% number is based on the liquid assets only by the way, so not including the condo. A margin call would certainly suck and I guess IBKR would force sell some of my stocks at a low valuation since I don't have any cash somewhere else to add in that event.

 

The official max leverage on a margin account is 6.6x but of course the requirements vary depending on the volatility of the stocks you own as well as whether IBKR feels tight at the bottom and decides to change the rules. Every time I do an online search to educate myself about margin the stories are about guys using very high multiples like x3 x4 leverage as well as turbos, levered ETFs, complicated derivatives or meme stocks and get killed, therefor the value investing crowd concludes margin is evil and should never be used ever. I rarely see a calm dispassionate discussion on using x1.2-1.5 on a super stable plain vanilla all world ETF and/or some diversified high quality mega caps with no trading in and out once the market is already down 15+%, and it does feel like an underused free lunch.

Edited April 4, 2025 by WayWardCloud

[73 Reds]

9 minutes ago, WayWardCloud said:

Thanks for taking the time to answer!

I value your opinion.

 

The above is my entire net worth. The condo is up for sale but unfortunately won't see that money until maybe a year from now so I can't count on it in this dip. The 120% number is based on the liquid assets only by the way, so not including the condo. A margin call would certainly suck and I guess IBKR would force sell some of my stocks at a low valuation since I don't have any cash somewhere else to add in that event. The official max leverage on a margin account is 6.6x but of course the requirements vary depending on the volatility of the stocks you own as well as whether IBKR feels tight at the bottom and decides to change the rules. Every time I do an online search to educated myself about margin the stories are about guys using very high multiples like x3 x4 leverage as well as turbos, levered ETFs, complicated derivatives or meme stocks and get killed, therefor the value investing crowd concludes margin is evil and should never be used ever. I rarely see a calm dispassionate discussion on using x1.2-1.5 on a super stable plain vanilla all world ETF and/or some super high quality large caps with no trading in and out once the market is already down 15%, and it does feel like an underused free lunch.

I don't use margin but certainly don't shun those that do.  Personally if I were to use margin now it would be for a very specific, one time, can't-miss investment (but in more than 30 years that opportunity has never arisen).  It is very important to understand how much leverage is permissible by your broker.  You don't want to risk blowing up a portfolio over what are usually short term, but sometimes violent market downturns.  Best investment advice (or any advice for that matter) ever given to me was live to fight another day. 

Edited April 4, 2025 by 73 Reds
word

[WayWardCloud]

"live to fight another day" definitely resonates, thanks!

 

The issue with the strategy is there is no way to know how much leverage will be permissible by my broker in the depth of a crisis because it's completely up to them to change their requirements. IBKR raised theirs during the covid lows but it's product specific and a complete black box. I take comfort in their fortress balance sheet and I'm thinking broad ETFs and quality mega caps in their clients accounts must be one of the last fuses on the list for them to blow. You know the joke about not having to outrun the bear to survive but only outrun your slowest camp mate? I'm thinking many thousands of meme stock bros account get liquidated well before I'm in any danger.

 

I'm reading myself and it sounds reckless... Let me phrase it differently. If you own 500k of quality stocks, is it really that dangerous to borrow 100-150k to invest a little more in a downturn?

Edited April 4, 2025 by WayWardCloud

[Gregmal]

2 minutes ago, WayWardCloud said:

 

I'm reading myself and it sounds reckless... Let me phrase it differently. If you own 500k of quality stocks, is it really that dangerous to borrow 100-150k to invest a little more in a downturn?

Nah I’ve done this my whole life. It’s the only reason I have an IBKR account. Your only job is to make sure you own quality. But if you’re nimble, and especially if you have income or liquidity, using an extra 20-30% on 6 figure amounts is fine. 

[cubsfan]

2 minutes ago, WayWardCloud said:

I'm reading myself and it sounds reckless... Let me phrase it differently. If you own 500k of quality stocks, is it really that dangerous to borrow 100-150k to invest a little more in a downturn?

 

You never really know what will happen. I think that is the issue. I remember the late 1990-2000 period. Buying the dip always worked. You got conditioned to it. Until it didn't and it took the NASDAQ 10+ years to recover.

 

Not a criticism at all. Just make sure you understand your margin issues.

 

Margin calls really put pressure on one.

[73 Reds]

1 minute ago, WayWardCloud said:

"live to fight another day" definitely resonates, thanks!

 

The issue with the strategy is there is no way to know how much leverage will be permissible by my broker in the depth of a crisis because it's completely up to them to change their requirements. IBKR raised theirs during the covid lows but it's product specific and a complete black box. I take comfort in their fortress balance sheet and I'm thinking broad ETFs and quality mega caps in their clients accounts must be one of the last fuses on the list for them to blow. You know the joke about not having to outrun the bear to survive but only outrun your slowest camp mate? I'm thinking many thousands of meme stock bros account get liquidated well before I'm in any danger.

 

I'm reading myself and it sounds reckless... Let me phrase it differently. If you own 500k of quality stocks, is it really that dangerous to borrow 100-150k to invest a little more in a downturn?

LOL, you're probably asking the wrong person for advice.  I made lots (LOTS) of investment mistakes in my younger days but managed to learn from all of them.  One involved an unexpected margin call and it stung.  Admittedly back then I knew very little about the process and thought I'd have more time to bring the account up to speed (wrong!).   So I guess my advice would be not to employ margin if the risks outweigh the potential benefit and even then, does the added benefit justify the risks?  Only you can answer that question.

[brobro777]

44 minutes ago, thepupil said:

I have felt zero compulsion to buy much of anything.

 

most stuff has lost 3 months to 1 year of gains. The fundamental picture and degree of certainty seems far worse. 
 

Illiquid stuff I own isn’t down. RE isn’t down. 
 

and high quality stuff is down a teensy bit. Maybe GOOG is a little

tempting, but I’m a little sheepish on the AI front there. 

 

Sentiment feels bad in terms of violence but not in terms of absolute valuations.

 

i could just be scarred from covid where I was dumb and loaded up on the wrong stuff early and got bailed out by everything else selling off which allowed for healthy rotation/doversification. But alternative histories exist where I’d have blown myself up and impaired my capital because I was overly cavalier regarding the degree to which the world had potentially changed. 

 

what I’ve also discovered in the last two days is I also suck at being hedged. Made an immaterial $$$ and got out of those index shorts in hurry. Being short 100% of my taxable account I. Indices for all of two days massively increased degree to which I watched the screens. It mitigated losses while somehow increasing my stress. Not for me.

 

So long way of saying, I’m doing jack until something slaps me in the face as obvious.

that's fair but Goog may be decent here - Waymo is everywhere in Los Angeles bro, like everywhere