What are you buying today?

[Whensthepaintdry?]

I do like the thought of using a heloc instead of margin. The thought of being a forced seller scares me. I would use a loan against my house though because it’s fixed and I know I’ll be able to make the payments. 

[73 Reds]

14 minutes 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?

Another way to look at margin is three things can happen with margin and two are bad.  Stocks go down, you lose.  Stocks remain flat, you lose.  Stocks go up by more than what margin costs, you win.   (I know, stocks go up far more often than they go down).  Just saying....

[Lance]

Wrote puts on M

 

Small trim to EDV

 

Bought:

 

ADM, ATUSF, CCJ, EL Financial, ICE, LAMR, LB, NDAQ, OUT, PBT, STR

 

BUI, CSWC, DVYE, PBDC, PFFA

 

CTA, DBMF, VBR, VEA, VNQ, VNQI

 

Thanks

Lance

 

 

[Eldad]

S&P is still at like 26.82 PE. Average is 15/16. Now it is hugely weighted with extremely high ROIC companies so maybe like 20 makes sense.
 

GOOGL is a fair buy here but as cool as Waymo and YouTube etc are, it’s all about search. Can Google keep up the growth and the margins for the next 10 years with AI maybe eroding the moat? Maybe but it is highly uncertain. Most investors here probably own a good amount already as well. 
 

Most other high quality valuations seem way above 2023 and 2022 lows currently. 

Edited April 4, 2025 by Eldad

[Blake Hampton]

Bought some BRY and OXY

[Blake Hampton]

Still sitting on a bunch of cash that I might use to finance a home purchase. I'm a Fed though so the job uncertainty is real. A lot of that cash might have to sit around just for emergencies which sucks...

[Gregmal]

7 minutes ago, Eldad said:

S&P is still at like 26.82 PE. Average is 15/16. Now it is hugely weighted with extremely high ROIC companies so maybe like 20 makes sense.
 

GOOGL is a fair buy here but as cool as Waymo and YouTube etc are, it’s all about search. Can Google keep up the growth and the margins for the next 10 years with AI maybe eroding the moat? Maybe but it is highly uncertain. Most investors here probably own a good amount already as well. 
 

Most other high quality valuations seem way above 2023 and 2022 lows currently. 

GOOG is great and all, but it's always been the cheapest of the glam stocks. Dont think jumping after it on just a 10-20% pullback after a largely AI fueled rally from like $100-120 is all that wise. I'd love to own it again maybe around $130.

[Eldad]

13 minutes ago, Blake Hampton said:

Still sitting on a bunch of cash that I might use to finance a home purchase. I'm a Fed though so the job uncertainty is real. A lot of that cash might have to sit around just for emergencies which sucks...

Just work hard. You will put your coworkers to shame and be indispensable to your boss. 
 

I am naturally nervous and used to always worry about getting fired. Then one day I looked around and realized everyone around me was pretty lazy and didn’t give a crap like I did and I had nothing to worry about. I know it’s different for you with the Doge, but hard work should get you through. 
 

Be careful with the oil stuff. Buying it in the 30s and 20s is some of the most fun you can have but we are still in the 60s. 

[learner]

1 hour 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 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.

 

Moderately levering up during downturns is a good strategy, particularly if valuations are reasonable and if the person is still working and is likely to continue saving in the future. Even Warren seems to indicate that levering upto ~50% is ok on a diversified index. Too much leverage can become an issue, but 20% shouldn't be an issue

 

In 2000, several things were very overvalued 

 

 

[Red Lion]

32 minutes ago, Eldad said:

Be careful with the oil stuff. Buying it in the 30s and 20s is some of the most fun you can have but we are still in the 60s. 

I've got a terrible track record with oil investments, but when it went negative I got my wife to load up on the majors and it turned out to be a very profitable investment. Doubt I ever see that again, but if so I'm backing up the truck. 

[Gregmal]

@Blake Hampton why are you so averse to buying Berkshire? Ignore all the old guys(whom have gotten rich from Berkshire) talking about it being “relatively” expensive for Berkshire standards. If you pant a piggy bank stock or something you can build a foundation on, there’s few better options. In you’re 20s the quote you get almost doesn’t even matter if it’s indeed a longer term hold.

[Gregmal]

Oil investing has a prerequisite of like being able to endure 6-8 years of paper cuts and punches to the face, for 1-2 windfalls. Best advice I’ve heard from people is that if you wanna make money in oil, go work for an oil company. The culture just doesn’t really mesh well with shareholder prosperity. 

[RichardGibbons]

1 hour ago, Eldad said:

S&P is still at like 26.82 PE. Average is 15/16. Now it is hugely weighted with extremely high ROIC companies so maybe like 20 makes sense.

 

I agree with you that it makes sense to consider 20 the average, and I'd say that 15 is more like a low.  It's been 40 years since the PE spent significant chunks of time under a 15 PE, and after 40 years, it's reasonable to say that there's been a change.

[Blake Hampton]

How Inflation Swindles the Equity Investor - Warren E. Buffett

 

Forget about the inflation part and think about this article in terms of valuing the general market.

[Blake Hampton]

I would also say that the current setup for oil is almost unbelievable. It just feels like it's too much to explain right now.

[Blake Hampton]

People must think I have some chronic affinity for the 70s or something.

[Hektor]

3 hours ago, cubsfan said:

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.

+1

[brobro777]

1 hour ago, Gregmal said:

Oil investing has a prerequisite of like being able to endure 6-8 years of paper cuts and punches to the face, for 1-2 windfalls. Best advice I’ve heard from people is that if you wanna make money in oil, go work for an oil company. The culture just doesn’t really mesh well with shareholder prosperity. 

yea man from what I can tell those cowboys have a good time, a real good time on company money, in addition to compensation 

 

 

[cubsfan]

1 minute ago, brobro777 said:

yea man from what I can tell those cowboys have a good time, a real good time on company money, in addition to compensation 

 

 

 

I wondered why I've never made a dime on oil companies!  

But boy can they spin the stories about "reserves"..

[Gregmal]

Yup. Tom Ward got me earlier in my career. Lee Cooperman and…cough Prem Watsa too. I learned a very valuable lesson that thankfully didn’t cost me much. 

[jfan]

Probably premature capital deployment on my part.

Bought the following in the past couple of days

- smidgen of FNV, Terravest

- moderate starting position in Landbridge

- added to FFH and JOEs

 

Considering more Nintendo, EQ Bank and maybe starters on LVMH, Hermes, Brunello, Aecon

[Hsmpanl]

10 minutes ago, Gregmal said:

Yup. Tom Ward got me earlier in my career. Lee Cooperman and…cough Prem Watsa too. I learned a very valuable lesson that thankfully didn’t cost me much. 

I’m in the oil business, worked for SandRidge when they went through BK in 2015/16, and don’t worry, they got me too.

[Santayana]

Small adds to Macy's and Fairfax.

[hardcorevalue]

1 hour ago, Blake Hampton said:

I would also say that the current setup for oil is almost unbelievable. It just feels like it's too much to explain right now.

 

Give us your oil elevator pitch!

[lnofeisone]

Adding across my holdings, added NVO, BAC, APO.