here's a rocket article as i see a lot of you invest in rocket - thanks ed

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/implied-volatility-surging-rocket-companies-125512302.html?.tsrc=fin-srch

Seems like an odd call since it will likely tank the market which is about the only positive thing going right now.

With the amount of Fed-infused liquidity nothing can tank this Market for long.
Except for a black swan event, this doesn't rise to the occasion.

Baba (still my favorite Chinese stock) looks like it wants to run. It broke 300 for the first time. Let’s see if it can close above it.

On a different note I bought a little Pins awhile ago to ride the wave. I know of the company but never dug into them much. I decided to sign up and see what it is all about. After creating an account and poking around I have determined they don’t have much to offer. Am I missing something? I don’t see this website generating much cash the way it sits now. Please let me know your thoughts. I might just bail on this one and take the profit. Nothing wrong with that.

No, you nailed it. (Pins)
Its just an another medium riding the tech wave.
It will fizzle eventually, trick is guessing when to get out.
Baba, Chinese stocks scare me post election.

I agree. I'd put Pins on par with Craigslist. It looks like some lame website someone created in their garage in the 90s. I hate when I'm doing a google search, click on a result, and end up on Pinterest. I'm baffled by their valuation.

Thanks for the confirmation. I’m out.

Careful or you'll summon Iceman. In fairness, I hated Pinterest (the site) when the stock was in the teens and now it's over $40.

For me it was simply a momentum play. It was a good call to pick it up for the ride but I don’t see the site being good for investors long term.

Our company gets a huge amount of referrals from Pinterest's website
It's extremely popular with females
Just because you don't fit the target demographic ....

This 100%

However, I did find it useful during a home renovation project. Made a "board" and saved a bunch of pictures for master bathroom ideas. I actually used a few of the design ideas. So, great in that aspect, but I haven't used the app much since. Probably will for future projects though.

Google pictures does this to. In fact, it will pull up some pintererst pictures. But with google I get 10x the results of an image.

I know who uses it and what for. It doesn't need to exist. So many companies now are nothing more than advertisers, they don't make anything of value, they're just middlemen taking a cut. Hell, I have a website that makes thousands a month in ebay referrals. It's serving no purpose other than taking money out of ebay's pocket and putting it in mine.

Maybe I should have an IPO

I hear what you're saying but the big boys do it far better in my opinion. I rather put my money there for the long term investments. By the way, I told my wife I bought Pins and she asked "why?" and told me "that web site sucks". Would I buy again? Absolutely - on a pull back. They aren't worth the price they are trading at now but are still trending up with momentum. Money can be made and timing is everything.

Irrelevant if it should it exist .... facts are it does and people are using it

What are some top picks out there from Pinsiders? I’m looking for a new stock to buy. For me it must be profitable or about to be profitable. My top holdings are Amzn, Baba, AAPL and Msft but they are all mega cap stocks. I’m digging my most recent purchase of QDEL which should continue to run as long as Covid is a thing. I was thinking about adding to that but I’m open to other ideas.

They just copied the corkboard concept that MySpace had first, and we know how that turned out.

I don't know about individual stocks, but I really think value will outperform growth soon. Growth is at historical highs vs value right now. That would include some of Ice's ditch stocks making a comeback, as well as a lot of forgotten dividend aristocrats.

I've thought about playing the spread, like shorting 500k worth of growth and going long an equal amount of value. In a downturn, you'd make more from the growth short than you might lose in the value long, and if both continue to rise and the spread narrows you'd come out ahead that way too.

My daughter has a small business and she was getting more referrals from Pinterest than anywhere else. I never thought much of the site myself but after a conversation with her I could see the value that it provided. Time will tell if the current price point on PINS is too high or not.

TBH this echoes my thoughts on FB.

I had $30,000 on the sidelines ready for FB. Sank to 19 after IPO and I didnt trust it. Im dumb...

I don't care for the social aspects of FB, but I kind of like that I can "like" a few of my favorite sports, teams, hobbies, etc and get a centralized source of information about everything I like.

I just started using their marketplace a couple months back and that's a great way to find local stuff to buy. So much easier than Craigslist.

Physical gold and silver. Copper is good too.
What no one explains is how are these good investments?.
They obtain astronomical value when everything else crashes. The only way metals could be a good investment.
Stocks? Caulk Manufacturers. Glass Suppliers. Paint Companies. Hardware (door and window), Fire resistant safes, security camera setups that are user friendly.
Treated lumber and plywood are a wild card right now.

I'm a big believer in gold and platinum. I buy a couple coins every year. I'm not a believer we are on the verge of a crash - actually, just the opposite. I feel the US is going to boom once the vaccine is available. 2021 should be a good year. I'm looking for a new long term winner.

Most of what I listed are Home Improvement related. I feel like this will be huge (more huge from the current standings).

I adjusted my portfolio a bit.

MAC, TISI, RTX, PLTR, CCL, HSE, REI_U are my long term holds for 2021.

Ditched RDS, OXY and APHA.

2021 should be interesting.

All you mention are also social aspects of the platform. The real difference between PINS and Facebook is that FB knows how to monetize its users personal info (friends, relatives, habits, likes, dislikes)... the depth of info they have on you is frightening, and the value of it on the open market, or to their internal advertisers, is far more than you think.

PINS hasn't quite figured out how to monetize their users in that way, even though they have much of the same info, but with a top 10 organic search rank on the internet and 400M unique visitors, all they need to do is sell their souls to the devil like Facebook, and they'll finally realize their potential.

possibly, but they did it better and more successfully
they have recently enabled easy integration with Shopify stores which will give them a boost in the long term

Nice upgrade today. If you are looking for a recommendation, hop on this.

200w.gif

I kind of took your advice but with with a small cap builder Cornerstone (CNR). I’m thinking a lot of these belly up empty business are going to need tweaked for the new occupants which should work to their advantage plus they also do residential stuff as well. Zacks likes them. They seem like a good pick at this time. Thanks for steering me in that direction.

Look into MASCO. https://masco.com/

I'll be back after the election fellas. Wanted to give you an update below.

PINS got a re-recommendation from Motley Fool Stock Advisor yesterday and Blast Off.

Another Analyst reiterated target of $54. Gotta own this for the next 3-5 yrs to let the story play out. Monetization of the MAU's and global growth.

They are doing MUCH better on monetizing users and growing globally. SHOPIFY has tied all of its shops into Pinterest. I'll go there to buy now.

btw, if you haven't actually used Pinterest it's a great site for everybody, not just women. I just bought a rowing machine through there. Travel, sports, etc. etc.

TTD and SE hit new highs.

See you soon!

TTD has been rocking.

Thanks for all the great insight! Following this thread has helped my portfolio dramatically!

Enjoy your break Ice! I give you tons of credit for explaining how things were not good but not as horrible as the “doom and gloom” politicians and Media, or what ever the hell they both think they are, portrayed. Then you went over how “the market” has winners and losers during all of this, so you can’t just buy any old mutual fund or etf, you needed to buy individual stocks of companies that our helping us out during this time. Then you repeated “Don’t fight the Fed” over and over and a bunch of folks got it. You also referenced “The Data Driven Investor” on Seeking Alpha that I subscribed to for $25 a month and I was off to the races picking stocks.

I sold off all my Mutual funds in May and now own AMZN AAPL AAKG CRM CRWD DOCU ESTY FB FVRR FSLY (good lord!) GLOB NVTA LVGO MELI NVDA PD PYPL ROKU SE SHOP SQ TTD TWLO WIX and even some other non tech stuff Reits on big sale like SPG and STOR and dividend darling EPD. Yes I own PINS and up over 100% on it and have double baggers on others already. All long term stuff for me.

Some folks became a pandemic and/or political experts this year. I spent my time researching the market and building a portfolio instead.

Thanks for being the spark Ice! Changed the way I think of investing. For fun let us know the day after your portfolio for whoever wins this stupid election. I learned all about stocks on a pinball site?? Crazy!

Today I was sitting back and thinking about my time analyzing the market and came to a realization... while we all tend to keep trying to find the next big thing, timing both the buy and sell side, over the long haul it's a fool's errand. Had I consistently kept all the big names I've owned over the years and forgot about them, I'd be way ahead of the game. BRK, MSFT, AAPL, ORCL, GOOG, AMZN, NFLX, CRM, all phenomenal performers even through the internet bubble popping, the great recession, and whatever this current market is.

I've seen this same effect with company options. A buddy of mine has worked for CRM for over decade, and I recently asked him if he's ready to retire. He told me he's been selling his stock all along, which is not uncommon because that's putting all your eggs in one basket, but man, that's a 33x stock in a dozen years. Another buddy of mine never touched his AAPL stock since the 90's, and never has to work again. Another buddy of mine dumped his company options while his coworker bought his options (only 5% of my buddy's) and never touched them.... today they are worth $400k. Imagine 20x that? Buy and hold. Buy and hold. Buy and hold. Right?

It's not perfect, but even riding the dogs to the ground, I'm certain I'd be far ahead of the game. Going forward I'm going to lean more into buying quality companies and forget about it. Today feels like 1999 all over again... tech FOMO is rampant, and boring covid-affected industries are being passed over. But it sure seems like big stable companies in the travel, entertainment restaurant and shopping industries are ripe for a near-guaranteed double in the next year or two. As an investor, that type of guaranteed return is stuff of dreams. And here I am full circle talking about market timing.

Its always good to remember that the stock market is the main mechanism for the rich to get richer.

It is a bit of a "rigged" game as it were and is getting more and more so over time as technology has advanced.

Logic and actual information are not as valuable as they should be.

There is allot of smoke and mirrors like the fed just printing money with nothing behind it or bank bailouts or any number of other forms of economic fuckery.

End of day if you have money its hard to go wrong throwing it in solid companies for the long haul.

Grabbed FOUR on 9/1. It's seeing a nice uptick right now.

Dumped OXY and jumped on the PINS train for a while at 45.

Good message. Would of could of should of. Will always be the way.

My learnings have taught me: You have to have a strategy fixed income and growth, remain consistent and utilize leverage to reduce exposure. Stay out of costly products meant to make someone else richer (i.e. Fee based funds, expensive mutual funds). Market timing never works. Buying consistent high quality companies does, use leverage and add more leverage when fear and greed has a gripped the the market, but again be consistent. If you buy on dips ALWAYS buy on dips. Sell when it hits the price point in the model The math works. One has to remain on the course and don't let fear and greed kill you!! Oh and find ways to reduce taxes, avoid high rate mortgages and never ever have a car, boat or motorcycle loan.

Disagree on the boat loan in one particular case. If the boat has a bed, head, and galley, it can be considered a second home for tax purposes, based upon usage. This can be very beneficial.

Buying more EPD, STOR, and taking a shot at LUMN (formerly Century Link) for dividend/value picks.

I bought some FB for short-medium term but otherwise avoiding tech, most have gone too high/too fast with many similarities to the dot com tech bubble, IMO.

I too disagree. It depends on interest. If you are borrowing at less than you are earning then you are better off investing the money you saved when taking the loans money.

If you are earning 7-8% a YOY ROI then borrowing at less than that is pure profit. NOW I will say a down payment is never worth it most of the time. Even for a house except most have to. I had a VA loan so I took the down payment and used it to start my investing. Make 8% on money I would have spent on a 3% loan. That is just a waste if I spent it on a down payment.

The only time you should borrow is when you can use the cash to make more than its costing you to borrow. However I would never borrow money strictly for trading as that's a risk obviously BUT theoretically you could. I mean if you could get a HELOC for 2.5% for a decent amount I WOULD totally do that for a large amount and put it in a decent investment spread. But that is just me lol.

Shopping the boat market again, salesman told me most people are getting 20 year loans
That's just nuts on a depreciating asset - interest deduction or not

Problem is, past ROI is no guarantee for future ROI. Current market returns can easily trick a new investor into thinking it's normal and expected.
Paying cash and being debt free gives you a sense of security and piece of mind that many value

I think it depends on the boat and cost. For a jon boat no way in hell. On a quarter of a million dollar cabin cruiser, absolutely. Boats of certain categories can be incredibly expensive, and with the shortage of boats right now there are not a lot of options.

Shit, my two neighbors across the creek have a Hinkley each. Those are 7 figure boats to start. I doubt they own them outright but who knows.

Sorry, 20 year loan on a depreciating asset doesn't make sense to me at all

It sounds like the Apple IPhone 12 has 5G capabilities and a new glass that is 4x less likely to crack.

If my toddler could talk she would say “challenge accepted”.

Not advocating one way or the other. Just agreeing with your dealer that the 20 year mortgage is common. Here at the Annapolis Boat Shows half the vendors on land are lenders.

Boats are expensive to buy and maintain. Price of admission I guess.