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Nasdaq's Shame

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Re: Nasdaq's Shame

#161

Post by cyanydeez »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #137
bryanlarsen wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, when SpaceX gets added to the index, it's going to skyrocket for just that reason. The other reason why SpaceX stock is going to skyrocket is because of the "infinite potential". After all, Elon is going to be God-Emperor of Mars, and how much is a piece of that worth? The OP knows this and wants a window to profit from this squeeze. For the general public index owners, the sooner it's added to the index the bet…

How will a colony on Mars be profitable?

Come on man, either we ship the unmentionables, or the billionaires get to live with their robot love slaves.

Obviously, you don't have enough imagination to keep Musk's ego based cost-proposition elvated.

Re: Nasdaq's Shame

#162

Post by infinitewars »

xyzzyz wrote: post #159
rayiner wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your basis for saying that? It makes no sense. Even if Golden Dome was a trillion dollars, which it isn’t, that wouldn’t support a $1 trillion valuation. Defense contractors average around 10% profit. Raytheon got $24 billion in government contracts in 2023. Its revenue is about $90 billion, and its valuation is $277 billion. Funding for Golden Dome was $24 billion in 2025 and 13 billion in 2026. Even if Space…

Traditional defense contractors have low profit margin because of the cost plus pricing on the contracts. They literally are only allowed to charge the cost they incur plus some fixed profit percentage. As such, they have incentive to drive up the costs, so that their profit, while low percentage, is on high base. SpaceX wouldn’t need to so that. Companies like Anduril already are trying to win contracts on fixed pri…

That's right.. and Golden Dome (which is definitely a mult-trillion dollar program if space based weapons are employed) has a bunch of convenient oligarch properties like built-in planned obsolescence with orbital decay that amplifies a launch monopoly.

Re: Nasdaq's Shame

#163

Post by rayiner »

xyzzyz wrote: post #159
rayiner wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What’s your basis for saying that? It makes no sense. Even if Golden Dome was a trillion dollars, which it isn’t, that wouldn’t support a $1 trillion valuation. Defense contractors average around 10% profit. Raytheon got $24 billion in government contracts in 2023. Its revenue is about $90 billion, and its valuation is $277 billion. Funding for Golden Dome was $24 billion in 2025 and 13 billion in 2026. Even if Space…

Traditional defense contractors have low profit margin because of the cost plus pricing on the contracts. They literally are only allowed to charge the cost they incur plus some fixed profit percentage. As such, they have incentive to drive up the costs, so that their profit, while low percentage, is on high base. SpaceX wouldn’t need to so that. Companies like Anduril already are trying to win contracts on fixed pri…

The estimates that have Golden Dome at anything close to a trillion dollars are posited on the assumption that it will be much more expensive to build than the administration believes it will take. If it ends up as fixed price bids and costs less than people think, it will be well under $200 billion.

Re: Nasdaq's Shame

#164

Post by rayiner »

infinitewars wrote: post #162
xyzzyz wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditional defense contractors have low profit margin because of the cost plus pricing on the contracts. They literally are only allowed to charge the cost they incur plus some fixed profit percentage. As such, they have incentive to drive up the costs, so that their profit, while low percentage, is on high base. SpaceX wouldn’t need to so that. Companies like Anduril already are trying to win contracts on fixed pri…

That's right.. and Golden Dome (which is definitely a mult-trillion dollar program if space based weapons are employed) has a bunch of convenient oligarch properties like built-in planned obsolescence with orbital decay that amplifies a launch monopoly.

> which is definitely a mult-trillion dollar program

The program already exists and you can see how much has been allocated to it.

Re: Nasdaq's Shame

#165

Post by infinitewars »

rayiner wrote: post #164
infinitewars wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's right.. and Golden Dome (which is definitely a mult-trillion dollar program if space based weapons are employed) has a bunch of convenient oligarch properties like built-in planned obsolescence with orbital decay that amplifies a launch monopoly.

> which is definitely a mult-trillion dollar program The program already exists and you can see how much has been allocated to it.

Sure let's pretend the first year budget of the program represents its entire future.

Even still it is already 2.2% of the entire federal budget. Multiple estimates put the total Golden Dome cost in the $$ trillions.

Re: Nasdaq's Shame

#166

Post by infinitewars »

rayiner wrote: post #163
xyzzyz wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Traditional defense contractors have low profit margin because of the cost plus pricing on the contracts. They literally are only allowed to charge the cost they incur plus some fixed profit percentage. As such, they have incentive to drive up the costs, so that their profit, while low percentage, is on high base. SpaceX wouldn’t need to so that. Companies like Anduril already are trying to win contracts on fixed pri…

The estimates that have Golden Dome at anything close to a trillion dollars are posited on the assumption that it will be much more expensive to build than the administration believes it will take. If it ends up as fixed price bids and costs less than people think, it will be well under $200 billion.

There are multiple estimates, including by Republican members of Congress and think-tanks that put it in the many trillions of dollars.

Re: Nasdaq's Shame

#168

Post by jongjong »

booleandilemma wrote: post #111
jongjong wrote: post #43

It's so bad. I could write a series of books about all the problems with the current system. There are so many. These index funds are a mechanism for monopolization of 'the market' and it affects real people and it suppresses other markets through the perverse incentive structures it creates. For example, I launched a crypto project back in 2019 which had its own decentralized exchange but ran into all sorts of hurdl…

Do you think we're going to see the end of America as we know it within our lifetimes? Surely the system can't keep going on like this?

I think many people will say it's already not the same as it was. It's not just a US issue though. It's a global issue. Every country is in the same boat. That's what's scary about it.

I think Ray Dalio is right that we are near the end of a kind of super cycle with multiple cycles converging towards some kind of major collapse.

We will have to reorganize a lot of things. I hope technology will provide us the support we need to rebuild without the capitalist incentive structure.

Re: Nasdaq's Shame

#169

Post by bagacrap »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #146
bagacrap wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then what does "index" even mean? Is Cathy Woods an index?

In this context, I would take any list of rules that dictates buying securities to be an index. For example, a fund buys an equal number of shares of every publicly listed company. Or a fund buys securities that trade with a ticker symbol starting with the letter C. Based on that definition, one could refer to a Cathie Wood index fund to be composed of whatever she decides to buy and a bagacrap index fund to be compo…

And if you went with that maximalist definition of an index, then the word would have no useful meaning. If the inclusion criteria is completely arbitrary and capricious (i.e. whatever cathie woods decides she likes that week), then it's still a fund, it's just not an index fund.

QQQ is both arbitrary (the stock exchange has nothing to do with business operations) and capricious (they are changing the rules on a whim to serve Elon's interests, and because the arbitrary inclusion criteria somewhat forces them to).

Re: Nasdaq's Shame

#170

Post by bagacrap »

Retric wrote: post #143
bagacrap wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Index investing is a great choice for a long term investor who cares about simplicity, which should be the vast majority of them. Actually the best thing about holding individual stocks is probably the increased opportunities for TLH, but the nightmare of holding and managing hundreds of securities in your account is very seldom worth what you save on fees or deferred taxes.

You still owe the taxes on dividends generated by an index fund that automatically reinvests dividends. There’s ways around this like a 401k, but you can also own individual stocks inside a 401k or rollover to an account that lets you do so.

I don't know how that's a response to what I wrote. I'm not saying that an ETF is more tax efficient, although it is more tax efficient than a mutual fund. If you are worried about the tax drag of dividends then there are ETFs that seek to track spx, but without receiving dividends, by selling and rebuying around ex div dates. They're not established enough to trust with a lot of money, imo, but maybe it will become more normal one day.
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