BIG open today......BIG pent up momentum and demand, not to mention lots of money STILL on the sidelines. HERE is the TESLA.........WIERD........story of the day. JUST for fun. Although I would not put it past MUSK for this to ACTUALLY be true. PLEASE......DO NOT BUY OR TRADE THE STOCK BASED ON THIS SORT OF FUN STUFF: Tesla Releases "Short Shorts", May Hint at Profitable Q2 https://www.thestreet.com/tesla/news/tesla-short-shorts-may-hint-at-q2-profit "Just days after closing their second quarter, Tesla (TSLA) -Get Report has added a new product to their store: "Tesla Short Shorts". The product is likely Tesla CEO Elon Musk's latest jab at short sellers of TSLA stock. As of mid-June, more than 15 million shares of TSLA stock were being sold short. At Friday's closing price of $1,208/share, those shares-sold-short would be valued at more than $18B, making Tesla by far the most shorted company by valuation on the Nasdaq stock exchange despite having a much smaller market cap than the runners-up. Musk has often teased Tesla short-sellers on Twitter, including an April Fool's bankruptcy joke and an offer to send notable Tesla short-seller David Einhorn a box of short shorts. In 2018, Musk also called for an upcoming "short burn of the century", warning Tesla short sellers to exit their positions. Within a day of Einhorn receiving the short shorts, Musk tweeted that Tesla would be adding official Tesla short shorts to their online shop soon. The idea has always been connected to teasing Tesla short sellers. Although it took a couple years, the timing of the release of Tesla Short Shorts is interesting considering Tesla just closed its second quarter and reported delivery numbers well ahead of Wall St. expectations. As the quarter came to a close, a leaked Musk email alluded to the possibility of Tesla "breaking even" for the quarter, likely referencing profitability. Musk seemed satisfied with the results, sending a congratulatory email to employees the day after the quarter ended. “Just amazing how well you executed, especially in such difficult times. I am so proud to work with you!” - Elon Musk Tesla Short Shorts may be another indicator of the second quarter results. The essence of the product is to celebrate Tesla's success over those that have bet against the company. It would seem strange to time the release of such a product at the conclusion of an unprofitable quarter given that Tesla's lack of profitability has been a foundational argument of Tesla short sellers for years. While it feels strange to analyze such a product from an investment point of view, Tesla is a unique company with a unique CEO. Insight can be gleaned from unusual places. One such place may be in the product description of Tesla's Short Shorts. Emphasis added. "Celebrate summer with Tesla Short Shorts. Run like the wind or entertain like Liberace with our red satin and gold trim design. Relax poolside or lounge indoors year-round with our limited-edition Tesla Short Shorts, featuring our signature Tesla logo in front with “S3XY” across the back. Enjoy exceptional comfort from the closing bell." - Tesla Closing bell is a clear reference to the conclusion of trading on a stock exchange each day. Tesla always reports quarterly earnings after market close, or after the closing bell. Perhaps it's not such a stretch to imagine that the emphasized statement may have a double meaning that applies not just to Tesla's short shorts, but also to Tesla investors awaiting Tesla's next earnings report. The report is expected on July 22nd or July 29th, 2.5-3.5 weeks from now. Perhaps coincidentally, Tesla adds a note about the expected ship date for Tesla Short Shorts. "Note: Product will ship within 2-4 weeks" - Tesla If Tesla reports a profit, they will have achieved four profitable quarters in a row—a full year—for the first time in company history. Maybe not such a bad time to release the celebratory product that is Tesla Short Shorts." MY COMMENT The second leg of my TRIPLE EVENT......triple dipper...... for Tesla will happen July 22 or July 29 when they release second quarter financial data. A PROFIT will be significant event number two. Event number one was the recent production numbers. Inclusion in the SP500 will be significant event number three. BUT....lets not get too far out there on the old.....proverbial.......limb by talking about inclusion in the SP500. We need to get that second quarter profit first. At this moment the stock is UP $83.34 or 6.90% AND......this Tesla stuff is fun. I GREATLY enjoy the recent gains.......for sure. BUT.....I am NOT adding to my tiny position and am NOT getting all carried away with the stock. There is probably a pretty good chance that the stock is in a historic BUBBLE at the moment. BUT....that does not mean it is a bad longer term investment. It means.......dont go too crazy and BET THE FARM......you might end up SEVERELY DISAPPOINTED......not to mention BANKRUPT.
OK......here is a good example of why I invest as a LONG TERM INVESTOR. This example is absolutely fact and is the perfect illustration of how and why I think the way I do. I own 11 stocks in ALL the portfolios that I manage or own. Here is the ACTUAL performance data on those 11 stocks........in the form of TOTAL RETURN. TOTAL RETURN.........is defined as........price appreciation with all dividends reinvested on the ex-dividend date. TOTAL RETURN Company, One Year, Three Year, Five Year, Costco, 16.2%, 97.1%, 145.5% Amazon, 49.4%, 198.6%, 560.3% Nike, 17.1%, 72.5%, 89.7% Microsoft, 52.9%, 213.8%, 413% Apple, 81.7%, 163.7%, 212.4% Home Depot, (-16%), 20.9%, 65% Google, 32.1%, 58.1%, 168.6% 3 M , (-6.4%), (-17.6%), 23.3% Johnson & Johnson, 3.5%, 15.4%, 64% Proctor & Gamble, 11.2%, 51.7%, 76.4% Tesla, 414.5%, 242.8%, 331.6% MY COMMENT ALL these numbers are from my actual account at Schwab. Interesting that the.........one year number.......includes this BIG drop that we saw from the virus situation. You would not know anything was going on if you had slept through the whole thing and had no information other than the one year number. Of course.......TESLA for me........is a recent holding so I did not get all those returns. ALL the others.......I did get. AND.....yes......I ABSOLUTELY reinvest ALL dividends in the stock that produces that dividend on the ex-dividend date. A PERFECT illustration of the POWER of long term investing and the POWER of compounding. ALSO........an illustration of........the POWER of thinking of a portfolio as a whole and not getting too caught up in the individual stocks......which will vary over different time periods. For the LONG TERM these are BIG numbers. AND......what did I do to achieve them......NOTHING. NO market timing......no trading........just a lot of boring siting around doing nothing......well.......except for posting on here. Disclosure: The last five years until this virus STUFF represents one of the greatest BULL markets of all time. If I had ten year or twenty year data I would post it and it would probably smooth out some of the big returns......but.......Schwab does not give me that data and I am too lazy to calculate it myself. #1459
NOT a very good comparison to the above numbers.........but.......here is the TOTAL RETURN of the SP500. BUT....the calculator I used could not include the month of June........so......these figures are from June 1 to June 1. They are OFF by a slight amount since my numbers above are based on an END DATE of July 3, 2020. Anyway.... SP500 total return, 1 year 10.62%, 3 year 35.28%, 5 year 63.52% AND......keep in mind that short term numbers like these......especially for the individual stocks.......are skewed by the short time period and short term events compared to the general averages. For accurate numbers I would prefer to see 10-20 year total returns for the stocks.
YES!!!! BUT.......I am on double secret probation. BUT....than again.....I am up by 32% since June 23. (yes, TSLA) AMAZON totally kicking ass today. Hiting ANOTHER all time high.....now solidly as I post this it is at $3007. What a DOMINANT, AMAZING, company. Leadership, focus, and vision by top management are the driving factors here. This is what I mean when I talk about a company with VISIONARY leadership. Leadership that is all in for the long term and not to jsut make a quick buck for themselves. Amazon could climb another 20% ahead of earnings, chart analyst says as stock hits new highs https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/06/ama...limb-another-20percent-ahead-of-earnings.html "The stock climbed to a fresh all-time high of $2,955.56 in Thursday’s trading session, adding to an impressive 57% gain for the year. Shares were up 1.5% in Monday’s post-holiday premarket from Thursday’s close of $2,890.30. The 2020 move alone has boosted CEO Jeff Bezos’ net worth by $57 billion, more than the total net worth of Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Even with its massive gains, the stock still looks like it could run higher, two traders said Thursday. “While it’s not cheap, it’s not very expensive,” Nancy Tengler, chief investment officer at Laffer Tengler Investments, said on CNBC’s “Trading Nation.” “The company is benefiting from super-fast sales growth, up 26% year over year, and that’s been able to support the price at these levels, according to our valuation work.” Tengler said her firm was “poking around” the stock of Amazon at its current levels — watching and waiting for a better entry point. She said investors should be watching two of the company’s chief catalysts. “One [is] margins, which have been compressed because this faster growth is coming in the lower-margin space, and then secondarily, [Amazon Web Services] is sort of redoubling their efforts in trying to acquire military contracts,” she said. “I think they’ve really felt the pinch from Microsoft’s cloud business growing at a faster rate.” Craig Johnson, senior technical research analyst at Piper Sandler, said he didn’t see “any warning signs” in Amazon’s chart despite its meteoric climb. “On a weekly basis, the shares not too long ago broke out of a big multiyear consolidation. Your momentum is very positive,” he said. “The stock has also been outperforming the S&P 500. So, portfolio managers who are looking to play some catch-up need stocks like this.” Johnson noted that Amazon is trading above its average analyst price target of $2,803.75, which could create another tailwind for the stock in coming weeks. “I suspect when the next earnings season starts, this is a stock where these analysts, which primarily are all bullish, are going to have to be raising their price objectives,” Johnson said. “And if I just look at a chart and sort of measure things out, ... [$3,400], 3,500, sort of at minimum, seems like a price objective of where this stock could ultimately go to. So, we’d still be a buyer of Amazon shares in here, bottom line.” A run to $3,500 would represent a more than 21% increase from Amazon’s Thursday closing level." MY COMMENT YES......another GREAT day for AMZN stock so far today. I dont see this company hitting its business PEAK any time soon. The ONLY future danger for this company will be when Jeff Bezos steps down or retires. AND......hopefully that time is a long way off. An absolutely DOMINANT company and a required core holding for any long term stock investor.......in my personal opinion.
If i am not mistaken, the short shorts tweet went out after the delivery report. But the shorts are indeed real. And beautiful, as promised! Lol if you do not twitter, it may be worth a download. If nothing else than to keep tabs on your new “small %” albeit maverick CEO, elon. Haha. He does provide u some of the headlines before they become headlines. And funny as hell.
Shorting Tesla has made a couple of high profile bears into millionaires. Of course, they used to be billionaires.
That is about right TomB16. What can I say about today......GREEN all the way around my portfolios. Amazon UP by $166 or 5.77%. Tesla Up $162 or 13.48%. As to Tesla...........the markets are DEFINITELY anticipating a positive result with the upcoming earnings. It had better happen or there will be a really NASTY drop in the price. At this point I am UP by 36.5% in my tiny position. ALTHOUGH.......it is not as tiny anymore with these gains. Now I have a little bit of a cushion for any drop that occurs short term. What is REALLY NICE.......is......BEATING the SP500 by 1.13% today. YES!! Amazon Analysts Can’t Keep Up as Shares Eclipse $3,000 https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amazon-analysts-t-keep-shares-150913060.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Amazon.com Inc. rallied on Monday, with the stock extending a recent advance deeper into record territory and topping $3,000 for the first time. Shares rose as much as 4.8% to touch $3,030.30, and were on track for their fourth straight daily gain. The stock is up more than 12% over the four-day stretch and has climbed about 80% off a March low, resulting in a market capitalization of $1.5 trillion. Amazon has seen accelerating demand for its e-commerce and cloud-computing services during the pandemic, which has closed brick-and-mortar rivals and led more people work remotely. Many analysts on Wall Street expect these trends will outlast the pandemic, solidifying the company’s market share and fueling the recent advance. Despite the growing optimism, Amazon’s rally has left most Wall Street analysts in the dust. Fewer than a quarter of the 50 or so analysts tracked by Bloomberg have a target above $3,000, and the average target is about $2,810. While that is up from the $2,179 average at the end of 2019, it still implies downside of about 7% from current levels. According to an analysis of Bloomberg data, the degree to which the share price exceeds the average target is at a multi-year high. Amazon remains a consensus favorite on Wall Street. Only one firm tracked by Bloomberg recommends selling the stock, compared with the 52 that advocate buying it. Four firms have the equivalent of a hold rating." AND Amazon shares just hit an all-time high https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/investing/amazon-stock-all-time-high/index.html MY COMMENT EXTREMELY STRONG start to the new week. I would be very surprised if this week......five market days.......is negative. NO ONE is talking this market down. I dont care what the topic. We COULD be in for another 10-15% BUMP UP in the markets over the next month or so. An......old fashioned......summer rally. BUT......actually.....NOTHING old fashioned about this rally. It is being led by the TECH ROYALTY........and.........at the same time is VERY broad based.
Tech companies are totally killing it this week and maybe even past 30 days. Amazon FB PayPal eBay DOCU are at al time highs. Is this happening because they are exceptionally busy during corona days and will slow down once people go back to traveling and restaurants? Or will they strengthen now and strike when brick & mortar attempt to open and crush them? Side note, traffic to my eBay store has slowed down, but absolutely hasn’t died. Just got back to what it was before March. But NO customer returns which means people are not out of money but maybe started going to shops more now. We will find out Great week start. Tesla is doing incredibly well, I hope this is not the beginning of an inflation for them. My prediction was 1200 by this years end and when I told that to people in jan they looked at me funny. But hey, I’m not complaining. In the long run this company would be another apple. We just came back from a road trip from NY to Westerville OH(if you haven’t been you MUST go, such a beautiful town), our friends who joined us were SHOCKED how easy, efficient and transparent were the supercharging stations along the way. The Tesla system plans your trip for you based on the closest supercharging stations. Historically I can’t remember a time I had to wait for a supercharger, in other words, you will always find an available charger and if they are occupied by other cars then navigation system will skip it and direct you to an available one. So you’re driving in style, with amazing comfort, GAS FREE and manage to impress your friends while at it lol When someone that doesn’t own a Tesla, like our friends, sees that they said what everyone normal would say “well now I understand why Tesla is a 1300$ stock”
My brother used to live in Las Vegas. There was no Tesla store in my city. In 2014, when in LV, I had never been to a Tesla store and wanted to go. I had been following the company since inception. During the drive there, my brother talked about the fallacy of electric vehicles: not practical, no way to charge, range problems, battery problems, pollute more than gas, no resale, etc. Basically, he parroted out the bear narrative. On leaving, less than a block from the store, he said, "What do you think I can get for my 535i?" There are a couple of Tesla bears, turned bulls, that followed the exact same trajectory. They knew all about it, until they drove one and realized everything they were full of balogna. Even now, one of the Stockaholic locals just mentioned it takes hours to charge a Tesla at a Supercharger. Wow.
HERE is the important financial news of the day. I was SURPRISED to see this. I had already gone through at least four newspaper sites, and at least 10 online news and event sites. NOT A WORD about this story on any of them. Than I looked at a small stock site and there it was. There is a BIG PROBLEM when the media will NOT report this sort of story. NO.....I dont expect them to make it their main headline.....it is a specialized topic....business and investing. BUT......I do have some minimum expectation from the media to report the actual IMPORTANT and useful financial news somewhere on their site. ALTHOUGH.....I am from the "old days" when news was actually reported by the news sources........so.......what do I know. U.S. hiring races to record high in May, layoffs abate https://finance.yahoo.com/news/u-hiring-races-record-high-144357693.html (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "WASHINGTON, July 7 (Reuters) - U.S. hiring surged to a record high in May and layoffs declined as businesses reopened, but the signs of improvement in the labor market have been overshadowed by a resurgence in COVID-19 cases that has forced some enterprises to shut down again. The Labor Department said on Tuesday in its monthly Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey, or JOLTS, hiring accelerated by 2.4 million jobs to 6.5 million, the highest level since the government started tracking the series in 2000. The hiring rate jumped to an all-time high of 4.9% from 3.1% in April. The report followed on the heels of news last Friday that the economy created a record 4.8 million jobs in June. Nonfarm payrolls have rebounded after a historic plunge of 20.787 million in April as the labor market reeled from the closure of businesses in mid-March to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But the upswing in hiring has been overtaken by record spikes in new COVID-19 infections in large parts of the country, including Arizona and the highly populated states of California, Florida and Texas, which have forced several jurisdictions to scale back or pause reopenings, and send some workers back home. Hiring in May was driven by the accommodation and food services industry. There were also increases in the healthcare and social assistance and construction businesses. Layoffs and discharges tumbled 5.9 million to 1.8 million in May. The accommodation and food services industry accounted for the bulk of the decline in layoffs. There were also decreases in the retail sector. The layoffs and discharge rate dropped to 1.4% from 5.9% in April. The layoffs rate hit a record high of 7.6% in March. The government also reported that job openings, a measure of labor demand, increased 401,000 to 5.4 million on the last business day of May. The job openings rate rose to 3.9% from 3.7% in April. MY COMMENT YES......more great news that no one will know about. I SUSPECT that.........among non-professional investors.......few would know about this news. I may SKEWER the professionals in the investment world at times......but.......at least they track and have awareness of this sort of data. SHAME ON THE MEDIA for ignoring this sort of news in their coverage. It obviously does not need to be the lead story.....but......it should appear somewhere, especially in the current situation with jobs and employment and unemployment being critical right now. At least.......I understand WHY the media will not report this sort of "stuff".....they make their reasoning obvious. I DO NOT understand why someone that thinks they are an investor would not seek out this sort of news. This post is NOT talking about most on this site. The level of investing competence on this site is FAR SUPERIOR to the average person or the average investor.
TOO BAD I am not a trader. If I was I could cash in a 40% gain in my Tesla stock in 9 market days. (June 23 to today, minus days the market was closed). NO DOUBT....at some point I will ride a BIG bunch of these gains back down. BUT....that is how things work as a long term investor. UP and DOWN over the short term.....BUT........steadily UP over the long term. I am defining long term for this particular stock as being at least TEN YEARS. At this point I have no clue whether or not this stock will become a long term holding. MUCH will depend on how it goes over the next 6-24 months. When I looked at my accounts......about 9:30.....eight of twelve positions were GREEN. The account in general was slightly in the green.
There goes $1400.... lol! Instead of taking away your posting privileges, I vote to give you a lifetime achievement award.
WXYZ I’ve been feeling like you ever since last September when my 240/share Tesla got to 400, then 600, then 900... at that point I just said screw it, it is what it is, I’m holding on for the long run
LOL.....yeah to all the posts above. BUT.......I dont take profits.........and ........ dont re-balance. If I own a company.........I ride with it. If I am not willing to do that.......why do I own it. TODAY could have gone either way......but.....it went to the dark side. RED today for me. Three positions UP however including.....you know who. ONLY consolation is beating the SP500 today by .39%. Emmett......I wish. BUT.....I bought two paintings at the auction the last weekend in June and a month or two before that bought a "masterpiece" for medium bucks. (under $50,000) SO.....unfortunately.....my art budget is GONE for this year.
HERE is a really SOBERING article for all those young males that are rowing a boat on the river called......DENIAL. EVEN if you dont use the term day-trading........that is what it is. You can call it a Robinhood account.......or........whatever. BUT....in the end.....the result will always be the same. Opinion: Retired and want to try day trading? Read this first https://www.marketwatch.com/story/r...ding-read-this-first-2020-07-07?mod=home-page (BOLD is my opinion OR what I consider important content) "Should retirees try their hand at day trading? This question would have been unthinkable up until a couple of months ago. Day trading is risky, and that’s the last thing you should be incurring in your retirement portfolios. Nevertheless, no doubt because many of you have lots of time on your hands during this pandemic, day trading has mushroomed in popularity. The fear of missing out has been intensified by a rash of recent news stories making day trading appear to be easy. One of the more extreme was the claim by a day trader that he’s a better investor than Warren Buffett and that day trading is “the easiest game” there is. I have one word of advice if you’re tempted by such boasts: Don’t. Or at least, read this column first. I say this not because day traders never make money. Many of them do—at least temporarily. But the overwhelming pattern is for them to eventually lose much of their winnings. It’s this latter point that too often is missed. The usual response from day-trading’s skeptics is to point out that day traders on average don’t beat the market. But that doesn’t speak to whether any individual day traders are beating the market consistently. If they can, then you couldn’t care less whether the average day trader is a market laggard. This is why recent anti-daytrading diatribes have largely fallen on deaf ears. One of these was from Burton Malkiel, the Princeton University economist and author of the classic book “A Random Walk Down Wall Street.” In recently arguing against day trading, he cited two studies: One which found that day traders at Charles Schwab SCHW, -0.93% on average lagged behind the market over a six-year period, and the other which found that only 3% of Brazilian day traders turned a profit. Those are indeed sobering statistics, but notice that they enable true believers to continue to have hope that they can be part of the elite subset that consistently make money. A recent study eliminates even that hope. The study, “To Follow or Not to Follow — An Empirical Analysis of the Returns of Actors on Social Trading Platforms,” was conducted by six researchers at the University of Regensburg in Germany. The study focused on day traders on two social trading platforms that allow users to mimic the portfolios of other users on those platforms (Ayondo and Wikifolio). Because these platforms publish each user’s performance, the researchers were able to simulate the returns of a day trader who followed others with the best track records. Consider a strategy that each month followed the five portfolios with the best lifetime returns up to that point on that particular social trading platform. In the case of one of the platforms analyzed, this follow-the-winner strategy produced a 79% loss, according to the researchers; in the case of the other platform, the loss was 92%. (These returns are plotted in the accompanying graph as the “return-chaser” strategies.) The researchers next looked at progressively more sophisticated strategies for mimicking other day traders. These included focusing on the day traders with the highest risk-adjusted performances (in the chart as the “Sharpe Ratio chasers”), or eliminating from consideration any day trader that employed margin. After transaction costs none of these more sophisticated strategies beat their benchmarks. It’s hard to put lipstick on this pig. Notice that these awful returns don’t reflect averages, but the result of following the traders with the best lifetime returns. These results are not surprising, at least to me, given my four decades of tracking investment newsletters’ performances. Consider a strategy that each calendar year invested in the top-performing investment newsletter model portfolio from the previous year. As you can see from the accompanying chart, this strategy also lost more than 90%. Play money Even though earlier in this column I said to never engage in day trading, I am now going to walk this back—slightly. There is nothing wrong with day trading per se, so long as you do it with small amounts of money that are outside of, and segregated from, your retirement portfolio. An analogy is setting aside a certain sum of play money when visiting a casino, along with the commitment to leave when that sum has run out. I have in mind the wise counsel from many decades ago from the late Harry Browne, editor of a newsletter called Harry Browne’s Special Reports. Many of you may know of Browne as the Libertarian Party’s candidate for president in the 1996 and 2000 elections. Browne recommended that we divide our investible assets into two portfolios: The first, containing the bulk of our assets, would be a so-called “permanent” portfolio that would be held for the long term and rarely change. The second, containing our play money, would be a “speculative” portfolio. It’s in this latter portfolio that you could day trade with abandon. The reason Browne’s advice is wise is that it recognizes our all-too-human desire to gamble and play the odds. Instead of telling us never to try our hand at day trading, which could very well be honored more in the breach than the observance, creating a speculative portfolio of play money creates boundaries around our day-trading activities so that they can’t sabotage our retirement financial security. The other attractive feature of Browne’s advice is that you have a ready-made test for whether your day-trading adds value. Over time compare the performance of your speculative portfolio to that of your permanent portfolio. While there will be times when the former portfolio will hit the jackpot, odds are overwhelming that it will lag over the long term. But be my guest—try to prove me wrong. MY COMMENT EVEN the play money portfolio is a BIG danger. It will lead to the temptation to dip into the other......."safe".......money just a little bit. It is the camel nose under the tent. It will NOT end well. I would LOVE to see ALL successful traders including day-traders post their exact trades.......in detail.......in real time on some research site. I would GUESS that the number of traders that could successfully beat an average like the SP500 over 5 years and especially 10 years would be close to ZERO. BUT.....like "Dumb and Dumber"........saying......"Close" to zero.........means......."so your saying I have a chance". BUT.....like they say at J G Wentworth......."its your money"
I was looking at my schedule........well....what used to be my schedule. I have had 51 shows canceled since February 15. The last show I played was February 14. AND.....nothing has been booked or added to the schedule since than........so that is even more shows lost. I know a good number of musicians that are getting unemployment and other benefits. I will not apply since we dont need it and I am not going to take money that is not needed. At this point ALL the bars and clubs are closed. I continue to rehearse with two bands. I look at the agency web site nearly every day and nothing is happening.
You probably didn't read my story about the Christmas party. Went to a party with my wife and her former co-workers and spouses. Two of the husbands hammered me with stories of raping and plundering the stock market. None of these people are aware I even own a stock, so I'm not sure why I attracted this self aggrandising bluster. It turns out, one of the two lost all of their savings, maxed out their consumer debt, and then ran up a HELOC on their house. That started at the beginning of last year, so they were in deep trouble at Christmas. The other lost most of their savings but she still has a pension. She returned to work and now plans to work several more years but they will survive. A good friend of mine is constantly telling me how much money he is making in the markets. He started investing in February 2020. How well do you suppose he is doing? And yet, people come into forums, tell people they have mad skills, make tons of money, and other forum members swoon. Everyone makes money. According to exchange statistics, almost all of the braggarts are lying.
