451–460 of 774 posts
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Any time I ask on some financial forum about moving a chunk of investments to cash I get told that would be stupid, don't try to time the market, and just keep buying. I would have saved myself a bunch of losses if I had done it when I was thinking about it.
When would you have sold? When the market was at its "peak" in 2011? Or 2014? Or 2015? Or 2018? Or 2020?
I've grown anxious the past few years watching salaries skyrocket while I've played it safe, remaining at my company with years of seniority, but average pay that has been eaten away by COL and inflation increases, though in a very stable industry related to defense. Every time I got the urge to hit Leetcode and start interviewing for a new gig with a 50% pay increase, I remember 2007-2009 and getting laid off from 3…
It's fascinating to trace the genesis of present crash to Fed's policies post 2008 crisis. The interest rates were kept artificially low to prevent another Great Depression. 2010s saw an unprecedented rally of tech/growth stocks, fuelled by cheap capital. Growth at all cost was the mantra, hoping companies will turn profitable at some point á la Amazon. Uber's CEO hit the nail on the head when he wrote "The average e…
I think 2008 and 2001 basically saw "cut some fat and reflate the bubble" as the standard approach. I expect the same approach this time though I can't predict if it will work. This is basically the method of Greenspan and Bernanke, explicitly said that the Great Depression didn't have to happen, that juggling interest rates could have solved it.
The thing about these situation is that by just killing weaker players, the Fed allows the basic imbalances to remain and increase (income inequality, monopoly positions, speculative enterprises, etc). The Great Depression was the single biggest equalizer of income, I think in US history and certainly in the 20th and 21st centuries. Not that I'd be in favor of such a thing.
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People keep using the DMV as an example of government inefficiency, but my state has made it run so painlessly I don't think I've spent more than 15 minutes in an office over the last 5 years. I think government can be efficient if you put technocrats in charge of implementation rather than elected officials who are subject to the electoral whims of the uninformed masses. The problem with the above is it weakens demo…
The DMV in my state requires you make an appointment 4-6 months out right now. Walk-in appointments are unavailable or only available during a few hours a few days a week, if they happen to have staff that day. Good luck if you have your drivers license stolen. I sold a car of mine to Carvana in October. I returned the license plate to the DMV immediately, which is how they're notified that you no longer own the vehi…
I work for non-tech generating 100million+ in revenue. Cushy job, fully remote, good pay and full autonomy with flexible hours working as an IC. I recently talked to a startup, similar pay, culture would be a better fit since it was mostly techies and I'm a nerd by nature.....but things just got awkward as soon as I asked about their revenue....they were bleeding money and I was told they were being acquired by a big…
Across every investment class there has been a trend of buyers needing to become more financially irresponsible in order to participate in the market. Need to buy a house? bid 20% more than asking, if you don't - someone else will.. in cash. Need to build a ride-hailing app? prepare to pay people to ride indefinitely. Need to own a growth stock? prepare to pay upwards of 100x multiple on revenue. All around, there ha…
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It's always a good time to buy if you're doing dollar cost averaging into index funds. Trying to time the market is probably a fools game, much better spent trying to avoid total ruin.
Yup, I DCA regularly, but thinking about whether this is a good opportunity to throw extra into an index fund like VTSAX or maybe solid individual stocks. Extra would be coming from an account that I keep cash in for unforeseen opportunities.
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That sounds interesting. Can you link to any reference on this? I tried googling but didn't turn up much.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beryozka_(Russian_retail_store...
What parent comment is talking about was the system of cash and cashless (безнал) roubles. Cashless roubles were used for industry purposes and couldn't be converted to the ordinary roubles available to the population. When USSR allowed cooperation (primitive private business) in the late 80s, it was used by many officials as a tool to convert the cashless roubles from the organization's they controlled into real currency in their private pockets. And a lot of oligarchs (including Khodorkovsky) got their fortunes that way.
It's ironic that now ordinary Russians blame the chaos and injustice of the 90s on capitalism and free market, whereas a lot of that was created by a state economy system and exploited by corrupt beurocracy of a communist party.
Despite my handle I'd wager that it all comes down to a very risk averse society as shown by pretty much every metric ranging from low birth rate to drinking to smoking to drug usage etc. Back in the days when interest rates went down, people started new businesses or expanded those they already owned at a huge pace. I mean the population as a whole not the businesses in the S&P500. When the Fed rolled rates to zero…
Did you miss the startup boom + bubble of the past decade or something
> Investing in the stock market with a financial advisor essentially buying the S&P or some other mutual fund..that's way less risky than starting your own business.
Increases in the cost of healthcare, housing, education, etc. probably has something to do with the growing precariousness of the population and less willingness to engage in risky ventures like starting businesses. Can't blame people for wanting to mitigating risk when the stakes are so high these days.
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Any time I ask on some financial forum about moving a chunk of investments to cash I get told that would be stupid, don't try to time the market, and just keep buying. I would have saved myself a bunch of losses if I had done it when I was thinking about it.
Same. In December I had the urge to sell a bunch of stocks for the sake of cash and peace of mind because the whole market seemed wildly unsustainable. But the "don't time the market" kept being shoved in my face by friends and family. Who could've known /s
I work for non-tech generating 100million+ in revenue. Cushy job, fully remote, good pay and full autonomy with flexible hours working as an IC. I recently talked to a startup, similar pay, culture would be a better fit since it was mostly techies and I'm a nerd by nature.....but things just got awkward as soon as I asked about their revenue....they were bleeding money and I was told they were being acquired by a big…
It’s funny as that was my experience interviewing with companies between 1998-2000. Just insane business models but brazen confidence in themselves. I remember interviewing with a company in 2000 that had burned through like $40 in two years. This was New York and they hired IBM. I don’t remember their product but it was stupid. They had paid IBM to build their own custom app server for Java because their requirement…
> They wanted me to start immediately and when I turned them down because of the funding, they asked if I would start on Monday.
Is is straight out of a comedy sketch, I feel like you could take that to an open mic night and kill with it.