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Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

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111–120 of 139 posts

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EBITDA is important and it's a hard concept to understand for those who aren't familiar with finance I disagree. The acronym is surely a mouthful, but you can summarize EBITDA as "approximately the same as cash flow generated by the company before paying any taxes, interest on loans or making capital investments like building a new plant or buying manufacturing equipment" which should be very intuitive for someone…

I don't think that's intuitive at all. If you lack any financial experience, merely looking at cash flow is going to be intimidating.

That's why you look at EBITDA and ignore the walk from Net Income to Cash Flow.

If you're not looking at statements, all I'm saying is "EBITDA is the cash generated (i.e. the profit) before taxes or interest on loans"

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#112
I hate to pour cold water here, but a stock I believe in is one that financially performs well. It doesn't matter what the mission statement or philosophy behind it is. I think all those intangibles are highly overrated as an actual concrete $-demonstrated strategy for investing.

I find very mixed / uncorrelated results of companies emphasizing ESG issues leading to good financial performance. Larger factors control a company's fate.

Shareholder pressure on such issues rarely is a major factor in producing the ESG outcomes envisioned. More often it's broader market or social changes that lead companies to change, not the shareholders (even large institutions) buying or selling their stock for "moral" reasons. Divestment campaigns, for example, are rarely the thing that actually bring down a company or country -- their fate was already written elsewhere. With that in mind, what is the chance that my 100 shares are worth anything in terms of company direction.

Now, that said, I'm not going to invest a company that does illegal things. Nor am I interested to invest in coal companies, for example. I don't want to add to our global warming problems, even in the small ways that I personally have control over. But those companies were already doomed by each and every one of our choices about how to buy energy, the cost of natural gas, alternative energy generation costs, and the economics of coal-fired power plants tanking the demand for coal.

I would rather use my money to influence the regulations and government policies that corporations act under. I wish you luck, if for nothing else than to see if your model can gain traction and do something positive!

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it possible you're training your users to become even more susceptible to other investment scams? At the end of the day, the fact is that securities analysis and investing savvy is a sophisticated skill requiring many years of study before any kind of +ev outcome can be expected. In a way, this is one of the biggest reasons I think the move from private pensions to 401ks and the like has been a gigantic disaster.…

Commoners!? Wow, just wow. You sound like exactly the kind of hedge fund snob wsb is taking down.

If you believe WSB is "taking down" hedgefunds instead of "being played like a fiddle" by them, you should probably take a second look.

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#114
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hi -- I'm the co-owner of Alinea... the restaurant and group. While they are in different industries, I owned a derivatives trading group for years, run a tech startup (Tock), and am getting a bunch of emails from folks thinking I started this or am affiliated in some way. So... while I dislike conflict, I really don't like be associated with something I have no control over. There will be an incoming email shortly.

> There will be an incoming email shortly To the founders: ignore their email and consult your lawyer. Trademark infringement generally requires an element of consumer brand confusion. There is no way USPTO will see a restaurant and a stock trading app as likely to cause consumer confusion, as they are in completely different industries with absolutely no overlap. Sharing the same name doesn’t matter much given that…

Likelihood of confusion is not an immensely high bar for nationally/internationally-known brands (or ones that wish to be nationally-known )in the age of the Internet. Your restaurant gets a string of negative BBB reviews that feature prominently on Google that were actually aimed at someone's product? That's actual harm you can point to. If Alinea were just a local restaurant instead of an internationally-known institution, it'd be one thing, but If I were the YC company I'd take the opportunity to rebrand.

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commoners!? Wow, just wow. You sound like exactly the kind of hedge fund snob wsb is taking down.

If you believe WSB is "taking down" hedgefunds instead of "being played like a fiddle" by them, you should probably take a second look.

Could you give an example?

Market making firms have done really well due to wsb and the increase of retail volumes but it's unclear to me that hedge funds have benefited in any material way.

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Currently, we are seeing that retail investors aren't doing any research at all, especially young people are relying on social media and memes to make investment choices which can be dangerous. EBITDA is important and it's a hard concept to understand for those who aren't familiar with finance - that's why we offer digestible insights to make it accessible. Analyst reports are very long to sift through and most peopl…

> we are seeing that retail investors aren't doing any research at all > EBITDA is important and it's a hard concept to understand for those who aren't familiar with finance Is there any proof that the later group has better outcomes ? Even if you understand all the terms, aren't you ultimately just investing based on gut feeling since all the observable information has already been factored into the purchase price a…

Except, of course, not all observable information has been factored into the purchase price.

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#119

I guess I would want to see the outcomes of the average user. If the median user underperforms the S&P 500, which they likely will, I feel it's misleading to say you're empowering people. The alternative, meme-y yolo stocks, are worse, but is this really better if the informed choice is highly likely to be sitting in an ETF? > We also wanted to move away from a gamified experience which tends to cause stress and anxi…

Doesnt the median user earn the market return which we could say is S&P 500?

Not necessarily, the distribution of people's returns have a lot of skew or fat tails.

Re: Launch HN: Alinea (YC W21) – Invest in stocks you believe in

#120
post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, value investing!

Value investing like Fama French HML? Value like the factor that's gotten trounced over the last decade?

You could make the argument (and many people have) that HML and other simple value formulations aren't actually true value opportunities: they are just cheap and often value traps.

While I kind of look down at value, I think you can outperform with it but you need to look a lot deeper than simple ratios.

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