Spring Banter

[STILL N OF PIKE]

21 minutes ago, Hoth said:

I wonder what percentage of ARK's investors are under water at this point. There was a looot of chasing going on in January and February.

Cathy “really likes the market going forward “ lol , what else would she say . Seed money for ARKK was from that nutty archegos guy 

[amarshall]

Novavax is my lifetime home run.   Bought Nov 19 at $5.  Rode it to $330 and got greedy.   Really looking at selling it today at $140. The management is inept. They have a fantastic product.  They will make money in the future and possibly be bought out. 

I've been waiting for to take this vaccine because it's the safest. Unfortunately I'll be forced by work to take something else. 

[STILL N OF PIKE]

2 minutes ago, amarshall said:

ARKG I'm up 92%

ARKK I'm up 128% 

Thinking about pulling the trigger. 

It’s a ugly chart . But this wasn’t coming back for a while after the Feb hyper valuation growth stock bubble Popped

You got in at a heck of a entry price !

[Hoth]

20 minutes ago, STILL N OF PIKE said:

It’s a ugly chart . But this wasn’t coming back for a while after the Feb hyper valuation growth stock bubble Popped

You got in at a heck of a entry price !

I just think there's a huge mismatch between her "strategy", if you want to call it that, and the instrument she's using to execute it. She's supposed to provide investors daily liquidity, yet she's loaded up on highly illiquid, unprofitable companies where she herself has often been the source of liquidity through her outsized purchases. If redemption pressure continues and she exhausts her more liquid, higher quality positions (like her liquidating Apple yesterday), you could see a pretty spectacular cascade as she starts dumping into the void. Moreover, as she sells the higher quality stuff, it becomes more apparent to her investors that they're holding a bag of odious excrement and they all try to get to the exit..

EDIT: Oh, I forgot to mention the fact that Cathy buys her own funds. That cross-seeding is a giant red flag IMO.

EDIT EDIT: Also, by far her largest position >10% is possibly the bubbliest asset in her whole portfolio

[tamarack]

11 hours ago, mreaves said:

I see the bigger problem being the huge melt offs that seem to be bigger and more frequent.  Notice I said seem, I don’t have any hard data close at hand to prove or disprove that thought. Also on the anecdotal level, deep cold seems less common. And yes, I know we still get some good cold from time to time but -30s don’t happen much anymore. Growing up, it wasn’t uncommon for Canaan, VT to be the coldest spot in the country at least a few times each winter. It may be that there isn’t an observer there anymore or the location has changed but it doesn’t feel the same. 

Since 12/25/20 was the biggest melt-off since Jan 1996, it's easy to see such events as "bigger and more frequent" and the numbers probably support that impression.  As for extreme cold, the difference appears to be more in the minima than maxima.  I looked at 3 Maine sites, PWM, Ft. Kent and Farmington and found that really cold mornings have been scarce since 2000 but cold maxima seem proportional to the time span.  Choosing convenient breakpoints with 30-45 sample obs:

PWM: 100 year POR
             Minimum:  -18, n=35.  Jan. 27, 1994 (right at -18) is the only one since 1984.
             Maximum:  +6, n=34.   Five mornings post-2000, 2 of which came in the cold week following Christmas 2017..  Seven would be exactly proportional to the POR.

Fort Kent:  76 year POR
            Minimum:  -35, n=44.  Five came in Jan 2009, no others since 2000.
            Maximum:  -6, n=44.   Ten came post-2000, including the -15 in Jan. 2014, 2nd coldest min on record. 

Farmington:  121 year POR (skipping 1893-99 as records for that period are often out of line with other sites.)
            Minimum:  -30, n=29.  Six in the 1990s but none since.  Coldest 21st century is 29/27 on Jan. 16-17, 2009.  No other mornings colder than -24.
            Maximum:  -1, n=31.   Five since 2000 including the 3rd coldest max.   If threshold is zero, n=45 and post-2000 has 8 such minima.

For those 3 sites at least, extra cold mornings are substantially decreasing in this century while cold maxima are running about proportional to the full PORs.
 

[amarshall]

Just stopped out NVAX $125 

[HIPPYVALLEY]

1 hour ago, PowderBeard said:

VIX is climbing. 

My tin-foil hat says Hedge Funds are behind a lot of the crypto pumps. They need it.

Edit: Borrow rate for AMC >70% LOL, godspeed to all those involved on that. 

Maybe but I think a lot of the traditional investment firms are still way behind on getting into the crypto market.   Bitcoion investment is probably keeping Tesla afloat right now.   

The crypto market is in a bull cycle that is supported historically and technically.  There will be a major 30% +  correction at some point in 2021, just hard to say when that is coming.

A lot of the garbage projects will fail and never recover their all time highs.  It's great some folks are making money on them but the potential to lose everything is very real. 

The big "asset cryptos" like BTC are here to stay and the technologically superior "platform crytpos" like ETH are here to stay.    They will also be subject to big ups and downs but are sound for the long term and I anticipate they will continue to appreciate over the next 5, 10, 15 years.

 

[Whineminster]

1 hour ago, Hoth said:

I wonder what percentage of ARK's investors are under water at this point. There was a looot of chasing going on in January and February.

I have 2 shares of ARKF I should have sold a couple months ago.....:( 

[ORH_wxman]

15 minutes ago, tamarack said:

Since 12/25/20 was the biggest melt-off since Jan 1996, it's easy to see such events as "bigger and more frequent" and the numbers probably support that impression.  As for extreme cold, the difference appears to be more in the minima than maxima.  I looked at 3 Maine sites, PWM, Ft. Kent and Farmington and found that really cold mornings have been scarce since 2000 but cold maxima seem proportional to the time span.  Choosing convenient breakpoints with 30-45 sample obs:

PWM: 100 year POR
             Minimum:  -18, n=35.  Jan. 27, 1994 (right at -18) is the only one since 1984.
             Maximum:  +6, n=34.   Five mornings post-2000, 2 of which came in the cold week following Christmas 2017..  Seven would be exactly proportional to the POR.

Fort Kent:  76 year POR
            Minimum:  -35, n=44.  Five came in Jan 2009, no others since 2000.
            Maximum:  -6, n=44.   Ten came post-2000, including the -15 in Jan. 2014, 2nd coldest min on record. 

Farmington:  121 year POR (skipping 1893-99 as records for that period are often out of line with other sites.)
            Minimum:  -30, n=29.  Six in the 1990s but none since.  Coldest 21st century is 29/27 on Jan. 16-17, 2009.  No other mornings colder than -24.
            Maximum:  -1, n=31.   Five since 2000 including the 3rd coldest max.   If threshold is zero, n=45 and post-2000 has 8 such minima.

For those 3 sites at least, extra cold mornings are substantially decreasing in this century while cold maxima are running about proportional to the full PORs.
 

Record low maxes have become more frequent at ORH in the past 20 years versus the previous 20 (there were 67 record low maxes at ORH 2000-2020 but only 57 in the 1980s/1990s)....but so have both record high mins and record high maxes. The record low minimums have seen the biggest dropoff.

 

[tamarack]

4 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Record low maxes have become more frequent at ORH in the past 20 years versus the previous 20 (there were 67 record low maxes at ORH 2000-2020 but only 57 in the 1980s/1990s)....but so have both record high mins and record high maxes. The record low minimums have seen the biggest dropoff.

 

Aroostook has certainly been rewriting the record book for high max and min in recent years.  Farmington co-op has an odd pattern for 21st century record warmth.  In the cold season new maxima are common while mild minima much less so.  Even with last December's mild mornings, 2000-onward has 4 high minima records and 12 high maxima.  The opposite occurs in the warm season, with a roughly proportional amount of high minima records but few record high maxima.  Exactly one record high has been set during met summer since 1988, just squeaking under the bar on August 31, 2010.  The only time the site has reached 95 this century was 9/9/02 and last June's 94 was the hottest since then, though 5 days have reached 93 since 2002.  Makes me wonder if the trees in the obs site vicinity are having an increasing effect.

[DavisStraight]

2 hours ago, amarshall said:

ARKG I'm up 92%

ARKK I'm up 128% 

Thinking about pulling the trigger. 

Sell some and take some profits, maybe hold on to a little in case it flies

[DavisStraight]

2 hours ago, amarshall said:

Novavax is my lifetime home run.   Bought Nov 19 at $5.  Rode it to $330 and got greedy.   Really looking at selling it today at $140. The management is inept. They have a fantastic product.  They will make money in the future and possibly be bought out. 

I've been waiting for to take this vaccine because it's the safest. Unfortunately I'll be forced by work to take something else. 

Greed has killed me a few times, I've learned to sell a portion to lock in profits and let a little ride, learned the hard way.

[Whineminster]

32 minutes ago, DavisStraight said:

Greed has killed me a few times, I've learned to sell a portion to lock in profits and let a little ride, learned the hard way.

problem is when to know to sell that portion....do you sell if you made $20? Hard to say. 

[bwt3650]

With the exception of the NFLX subscriber miss, those were some pretty stellar quarters for FAANG.  AMZN has gone no where for a year.  I'm no expert, but some of this smells like selling to play the crypto casino.  Don't really see people ditching amazon and their apple phones because we are reopening.  I'm a buyer and maybe suck up some pain temporarily for the long term on any 5-10 percent dips.

[Lava Rock]

11 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

With the exception of the NFLX subscriber miss, those were some pretty stellar quarters for FAANG.  AMZN has gone no where for a year.  I'm no expert, but some of this smells like selling to play the crypto casino.  Don't really see people ditching amazon and their apple phones because we are reopening.  I'm a buyer and maybe suck up some pain temporarily for the long term on any 5-10 percent dips.

speaking of amazon, I'm thinking of dropping Prime, mostly because since last year 2-day delivery almost never happens anymore. I could understand shipping times were extended last year due to covid, but at this point, we shouldn't being paying $119 for packages that take 5-7 days now. I could care less about Prime Music or steaming movies through them.

[BrianW]

The incentives are crazy out there right now for those in licensed skilled trades. Companies are offering some interesting stuff. This ad for a E-2 electrician in CT will give you the company truck after 5 years employment. 

BENEFITS: FULL TIME OPPORTUNITY, $10K SIGNING BONUS, $40+ PER HOUR WITH UP TO 10-15 HOURS OVERTIME EVERY WEEK, COMPANY VEHICLE PROVIDED, OVERTIME, 3 WEEKS PTO, 401K, MEDICAL, VISION AND DENTAL BENEFITS, KEEP COMPANY VEHICLE AFTER 5 YEARS OF EMPLOYMENT

[PhineasC]

6 minutes ago, BrianW said:

The incentives are crazy out there right now for those in licensed skilled trades. Companies are offering some interesting stuff. This ad for a E-2 electrician in CT will give you the company truck after 5 years employment. 

BENEFITS: FULL TIME OPPORTUNITY, $10K SIGNING BONUS, $40+ PER HOUR WITH UP TO 10-15 HOURS OVERTIME EVERY WEEK, COMPANY VEHICLE PROVIDED, OVERTIME, 3 WEEKS PTO, 401K, MEDICAL, VISION AND DENTAL BENEFITS, KEEP COMPANY VEHICLE AFTER 5 YEARS OF EMPLOYMENT

Nah, better for the C student in public high school to go to a large university far away from home, rack up $200k in debt to get a BA in Business/Fine Arts, and then move back home with his parents and become a suburban communist. That's the American Way.

[ORH_wxman]

9 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Nah, better for the C student in public high school to go to a large university far away from home, rack up $200k in debt to get a BA in Business/Fine Arts, and then move back home with his parents and become a suburban communist. That's the American Way.

Incentives will eventually shift the narrative but sometimes it takes a while. The stigma of the skilled trades runs deep from the 1980s/1990s....our generation remembers it well. "You don't want to end up as a plumber, do you??!". Who's laughing now...the plumber pulling in 6 figures with little/no debt or the barista who has a bachelor of arts degree with 6 figures of debt?

Mike Rowe (The Dirty Jobs dude on Discovery channel for those who don't know) has been a good force in advocating and making visible the benefits of going the skilled trade routes. He goes around and talks to high school students all the time. It's starting to reduce the stigma of not going to a 4 year college.

[yoda]

3 minutes ago, Whineminster said:

problem is when to know to sell that portion....do you sell if you made $20? Hard to say. 

As I have said in this thread before, I am in hard on the DOGE crypto train lol.  I have made some good money -- I know its kind of bragging, but its in the 5 figures.  I got in early on back when it was down around 0.001 (like a year ago) and had around 250,000 "shares".  I just hodl'd for a while and around Super Bowl Sunday when it was around like 0.07 I got out and sold all my "shares" and made 17K. 

About a month later, I took around half that and re-invested in DOGE when it was in the 0.15-0.25 price range. 

I currently hodl 60,000 "shares".  When it was around 0.65 I dumped half of my DOGE and reaped some good profits, again near 20K.  Right now, I have about $30K in the DOGE crypto market -- but that's money I can technically afford to lose.  I will pull if it gets below like 0.35, but I doubt it goes back down there again.  

I fully admit I got lucky and got on the train just in time.  I also know that I could lose all that money that I currently hodl tomorrow morning.  I figure once you start making 25% profit on your investment, its time to check in and perhaps pull some of your money out.

[PhineasC]

hodl 

[WhitinsvilleWX]

18 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Incentives will eventually shift the narrative but sometimes it takes a while. The stigma of the skilled trades runs deep from the 1980s/1990s....our generation remembers it well. "You don't want to end up as a plumber, do you??!". Who's laughing now...the plumber pulling in 6 figures with little/no debt or the barista who has a bachelor of arts degree with 6 figures of debt?

 

I can speak to this! 

My father is a retired plumber. He started right out of high school in 1959. He was self employed with his own business by 1963. He never did repair, always new construction. He plumbed Jack in the Box, Mcdonalds, Denny's, Walmart, you name it. He did office buildings, nursing homes and hotels. He sent me to college and med school with no loans. I had zero debt. 

When he retired, he had 6 mill pile of cash. Never cracked a college book.

[bwt3650]

24 minutes ago, ORH_wxman said:

Incentives will eventually shift the narrative but sometimes it takes a while. The stigma of the skilled trades runs deep from the 1980s/1990s....our generation remembers it well. "You don't want to end up as a plumber, do you??!". Who's laughing now...the plumber pulling in 6 figures with little/no debt or the barista who has a bachelor of arts degree with 6 figures of debt?

Mike Rowe (The Dirty Jobs dude on Discovery channel for those who don't know) has been a good force in advocating and making visible the benefits of going the skilled trade routes. He goes around and talks to high school students all the time. It's starting to reduce the stigma of not going to a 4 year college.

This 100 percent....And many of the skilled trade workers wind up doing well in real estate and rental properties because they have those skills...plus, the big incentive is you don't need a man bun to be a plumber.

[WhitinsvilleWX]

5 minutes ago, bwt3650 said:

This 100 percent....And many of the skilled trade workers wind up doing well in real estate and rental properties because they have those skills...plus, the big incentive is you don't need a man bun to be a plumber.

My father owned a lot of that kind of stuff over the years. He had a couple of mini storage facilities, a laundry, a few 20 unit apartment buildings, and some rent houses.

[PhineasC]

Just now, ORH_wxman said:

Incentives will eventually shift the narrative but sometimes it takes a while. The stigma of the skilled trades runs deep from the 1980s/1990s....our generation remembers it well. "You don't want to end up as a plumber, do you??!". Who's laughing now...the plumber pulling in 6 figures with little/no debt or the barista who has a bachelor of arts degree with 6 figures of debt?

Mike Rowe (The Dirty Jobs dude on Discovery channel for those who don't know) has been a good force in advocating and making visible the benefits of going the skilled trade routes. He goes around and talks to high school students all the time. It's starting to reduce the stigma of not going to a 4 year college.

Oh yeah, parents and teachers told me many times I didn't want to end up as a "ditch digger" (the generic term used for all trades). So many kids led astray by bad advice.

[BuffaloWeather]

2 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Oh yeah, parents and teachers told me many times I didn't want to end up as a "ditch digger" (the generic term used for all trades). So many kids led astray by bad advice.

Agreed. I wanted to go into the trades as a high schooler as my dad was a plumber and my guidance counselor told me I was too smart to go into the trades and literally demanded I go to college...

[WhitinsvilleWX]

Unless you go to college to learn how to "do" something, like lab work (biology major), engineer, met, etc, most college degrees are useless. I suppose you could major in art history and go to law school. 

[powderfreak]

1 hour ago, BrianW said:

The incentives are crazy out there right now for those in licensed skilled trades. Companies are offering some interesting stuff. This ad for a E-2 electrician in CT will give you the company truck after 5 years employment. 

BENEFITS: FULL TIME OPPORTUNITY, $10K SIGNING BONUS, $40+ PER HOUR WITH UP TO 10-15 HOURS OVERTIME EVERY WEEK, COMPANY VEHICLE PROVIDED, OVERTIME, 3 WEEKS PTO, 401K, MEDICAL, VISION AND DENTAL BENEFITS, KEEP COMPANY VEHICLE AFTER 5 YEARS OF EMPLOYMENT

Yup that's how you attract employees... sort of circles back to what I'm talking about in the service industry.  In the 1990s I remember it was the absolute last thing you wanted to do was be a tradesman.  The people who went to technical schools were treated like 3rd class citizens.  Now who's laughing?  I didn't need college... paid a ton for an economics degree that I shelved for my love of skiing and being outdoors everyday.  But man back then it was such a negative thing if you didn't go straight to a four year college.

[powderfreak]

23 minutes ago, PhineasC said:

Oh yeah, parents and teachers told me many times I didn't want to end up as a "ditch digger" (the generic term used for all trades). So many kids led astray by bad advice.

I think this is what's happening now in a lot of the lower wage service industry jobs.  Those jobs are stigmatized so much too... "you don't want to do manual labor or serve other humans for the rest of your life do you!?!"  That's why you have 50 year old delivery people and why wages, benefits, incentives are now starting to really blossom in some sectors of the service industry to attract individuals.  Maybe in 10-20 years that type of benefit package, incentives, bonuses, etc will be applying not only to trades but to service sectors?

This winter was the first time Vail Resorts issued bonuses to all levels of employees, straight down to the lowest part time levels (equivalent to a couple weeks of pay for the most part).  COVID played a role (thank you for playing this game with us) but I've seen a marked shift in ways they try to attract entry level employees.  And it's mostly money and benefits.  A decade ago a seasonal ski area employee couldn't get benefits... now it's becoming a thing.  Full time year round jobs were coveted for that, I still remember working seasonal for years back in like 2008 until I was "rewarded" with benefits and full-time year round status.  Now you get benefits if you want to work 22 hours a week for 3 months.... the cost to the company has to be huge on some of this stuff. 

[WhitinsvilleWX]

1 minute ago, powderfreak said:

 The people who went to technical schools were treated like 3rd class citizens.  

When I went to high school, the one that went to VoTech in the afternoon were basically just this side of prison and could barely read.

Now its competitive to get in. My son got in BVT for next year. He does a rotation in 7 shops (out of 18) then he picks next spring the one he wants the rest of high school.

[HoarfrostHubb]

Just now, WhitinsvilleWX said:

When I went to high school, the one that went to VoTech in the afternoon were basically just this side of prison and could barely read.

Now its competitive to get in. My son got in BVT for next year. He does a rotation in 7 shops (out of 18) then he picks next spring the one he wants the rest of high school.

Our son went to our local Voc school (2019 grad) for carpentry.  Very difficult to get in.  There is always a waiting list.  A majority still go to college which is interesting.  He is now doing a Construction Management major.  Starting a summer internship which will pay a bunch of his next fall semester.  Some of his friends who went right into the trades are pulling $60k-80k as 20 year olds.

I've been doing my thing for over 20 years now and still don't make $80k...lol, despite degrees, a union, etc