At the suggestion of another Pinsider I'm probably gonna start an "Estate planning, tax and financial planning" thread to help discuss some of those issues and questions i'm getting not related to individual stock picking, to avoid clogging up this thread and having to answer the same question multiple times. Stay tuned.

I just purchased another 10,000 shares of PINS. Takes me to 61,255. It's making higher highs and i believe looking to break out on a pre earnings run up. Been in a nice consolidation phase. Pay attention to anything SNAP related because they seem to trade in sync a bit. SNAP earnings come first and that's how we loaded up more shares last time before PINS earnings.

Plus i have a covered call position with a strike of $75 that expires tomorrow, don't want to close it out but i also don't wan't to pay a massive gain at ordinary income tax rates so IF it does get called in my taxable trading account then any shares come out LIFO.

Decided to sell PLTR and take my $15k loss for tax purposes and buy back 31 days later under the wash rules.

Will it cost me? Who knows, 31 days is not a long time

I'm stepping on the gas for rebalancing accounts into more "epicenter" related allocations. Biden plans for dropping another $2 trillion stimulus coming today

Can we also get a “how to live like Ice thread” where you dole out life advice? I would be the first to sign up!

LOL. Trust me, that's all i do every day all day. When i say i think i've seen it all with my clients, death, divorce, taxes, litigation, kids, grandkids, etc. etc. and the different flavors of all the above, here comes another issue that i say, "wow, haven't seen that one before"!

The Spice of Life! I love it!

POSHMARK.

This is a strong company - wonder where a good entry point would be to pick up some shares

Hope you have fun helping folks. Here is probably a good place for you to talk casually about the markets in a way you wouldn’t talk to your clients. Good way to wrap up your day.

One thing I have learned is most pinball people I know are very helpful to others and go way out of their way even to help strangers. It’s in their blood I guess? I definitely see it here and I am grateful.

Thanks and let’s have a great 2021 as the world comes back.

Just out fwiw

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Silicon Valley Bank, Shopify and Zoom rounded out the 5 “timely buys” list

I bought some FVRR a few weeks ago and it has been VERY good. Sadly, I didn't buy alot of it, and haven't added to it as it hasn't dipped at all.

PINS on the other hand, seems to have topped out for now. It's went sideways or lower since I've bought it.

Couple questions for a new guy doing this:

Where do you get your info as far as who is buying what (Senate/Congress/MAJOR big companies)?

How do you trade OTC stocks or other stocks that aren't on NYSE or NASDAQ (ARKX being a good example of a stock I want to buy but not available on either website)? WeBull and RH won't let you. What online broker do you use?

What websites help give you information (mergers, new CEOs, new advancements, owners investing into hundreds of thousands of their own companies stock, etc) to determine what stocks to buy in pre/post market?

I'm sure I will have many, many more questions as I just started doing this. For being a couple weeks in, I am doing ok, but man, there are some MF'ing major players in this thread, and I want to absorb knowledge.

Please be very gentle with me. This would be akin to a new pinball owner asking how to take the glass off their game...

Looking for some guidance here. I invest in my 401k thru work and they don't match at all nor do they cover any of the plan costs. I am paying out of my own pocket about 1.2% a year in fees which to me seems ludicrous since thats money I won't have working for me or availablein the future. I tried googling 401k fees for comparisons, and the results are all over the place. Is it way out of hand?

Be careful in these waters - pick a few stocks with small money but put larger amounts in a fund or etf like arkg/arkk to start with.

You can always roll the balance into an IRA with a brokerage - that will untie your hands.

I can't. I looked into that last year and they told me no. While I am still employed there, I am unable to move the money out of the plan. Also wouldn't help with ongoing contributions as I would keep building up a balance.

That sucks - I just moved my tsp (military 401k) to an ira, but I'm no longer contributing. Can you manage your own account - pick the funds you want?

I am able to pick the funds. I am in all aggressive funds at the moment, trying for larger gains until closer to retirement. Not sure if the fees vary enough from fund to fund to make a difference or not.

Mutual fund fees tend to be higher than index funds, because there is more management involved. are you referring to the fees for the actual funds or some sort of management fee that the provider charges? I doubt a company would pay the fund fees, but I don't know much.

edit: also, if they are not matching, can't you just open a traditional or roth ira through vanguard (or somewhere else) and add your own funds? Contribution limits might not be the same though.

My wife and I each have a 401k and an IRA, we max all of them. Both my wife's current and former employer covered(s) ALL fees associated with her accounts. Just wanna know if mine are WAY out of line before I complain to HR tomorrow lol.

My advice is to max your savings, invest in two or three index funds that gives you a good balance of risk (equity and bond holdings) based on age, max your 401k for company match, max your IRA, and do that for the next 25 years. Don't sell, buy monthly regardless of what markets are doing.

Don't play with individual stocks.

Aim for saving 25% of your gross salary and work to make that happen. Marry somebody with similar ideals.

It's how we built a 7 figure portfolio in 16 years and compounded it quickly over the next ten. It's simple, it's boring, it's not what this thread is about. It's not complicated.

If you want to gamble, by all means, ignore my advice.

great advice!

Man whoever the op was right about virgin ! Missed it !

Honest opinion, for a new guy you are asking level 200 and 300 level questions without knowing the basics first.

I would not worry about M/A, what companies are doing, any of that stuff yet. Go get you a free account somewhere and buy either some blue chips or index funds as investingdad said. Learn the fundamentals (is a stock expensive or not based upon P/E), etc. don’t worry about trying to do options or shorting stocks. 20 years in and I have done neither. Don’t get wrapped up in the Reddit threads or Robinhood threads at this point or there is a good chance you get your nuts in a vice.

As you get familiar and in a rhythm, you can start adding more investments or up your contributions. Look for quality at this point, not the hottest YOLO stock.

For sites, I read CNBC, the Street, Motley Fool, a variety of tech blogs, research from my broker, and blogs related to the industries of the things that I am invested in. Every day.

There are a lot of ways to go make money on the market. Active trading, index funds, real estate, etc. Big thing that I would recommend is to determine what way works best for your personality and risk profile.

Good luck!

Seems like it’s moving due to the announcement of Arkx!

It's how I wish I'd have done it.

We didn't put away 25%, but a nice % each year for the past 20 years and it's paid off. Should be able to retire way before 65. I only "play" with the individual stocks with $ I can lose. I would add depending on what your age is, to go more on the aggressive side. I would be in a much better position if I didn't have a sizeable % in conservative funds for so many years. But all in all, this is solid advice.

The fees should vary per fund and you should be able to see that info. My work account is through Fidelity and they are pretty transparent with what each fund's fees are.

A workaround is to max out contributions to individual IRA/Roth plans where you can control fees and funds, and then put the rest into your 401k.

Back to the basics. Your 401K has a 1.2% fee on the total amount which you pay out of pocket. So if you have $100,000 in you pay $100 a month? And you also have expense ratios that costs associated with each fund. Correct?

I would vote Fund a Roth IRA first. Need to answer about the 1.2% fee to see about the non match 401K. You or your wife have an HSA offered at all?

"Out of my pocket" as in deducted from my account, and I would assume that is plan expenses etc.... We already max everything out. She does have an HSA available but the contributions aren't investable as we see fit, it goes into some generic account. Also with 2 high schoolers in sports year round, we didn't wanna run the risk of injury with a high deductible plan until they graduate.

I think the standard for most investment advisors is 1% - you can negotiate lower if you have a lot of $$ in your account

If the fees in question are fund fees, that's crazy high. Passive index funds will have a nominal fee in the range of 0.5% or less, often much less. My guess is that you are talking about an actively managed fund.

My opinion is that actively managed funds will not do better long term, often worse. Add the fee on top and it's even less. Data backs me up on this.

You can see the fund fee as you click through the fund info, it will be clearly marked.

I lump fund fees and advisor fees into the same bucket, an unnecessary drain of your money that can be eliminated with just a little effort and education on the part of the investor.

BLUF: A specific event on which to short TESLA 5-10%... if you have balls of steel and money to lose.

All right, since this is the Stock Investors thread, I’m going to give my highly speculative theory on what will go up and what will go down… something so speculative I’m not pursuing it myself at this moment as I don’t mess with options. I think TSLA is going to have a sharp decline sometime in the next 3 months, but there will be a major flag that it is about to tank. Now, when I say sharp decline, I don’t mean coming back to earth, but a decline of 5%-10% off of the announcement of supposedly positive news that would occur within 24-72 hours of a specific announcement and event most likely to happen the end of March.

There are a lot more retail investors than usual right now… investors new to day trading playing fast and loose with their trades since the market crashed in March. People a lot like me. These “Robbin Hood” investors, tend to chase gains and jump from “Shiney” to “Shiney”. Right now, the shiniest thing out there is TESLA, and their stock has been going gangbusters this year. I jumped in and out of it a few times this year myself. These investors also tend to be the type that don’t keep “dry powder” for market opportunities… all available cash is invested with no reserves. A lot of the TESLA enthusiasts… most actually, are big fans of Elon Musk. In Elon Musk we trust is an actual phrase I’ve read a few times. I think Elon Musk is going to do something in the next 90 days that is going to draw a lot of money out of TESLA… tons of money to be frank… something I will get to in a second.
Another person a lot of retail investors have come to put a lot of faith in is Cathy Wood. Cathy wood, is the brains behind the “ARK invest” series of ETF funds. Day before yesterday her company filed to open up a ARKX ETF, a space based technologies ETF. On this news, ALL of the space stocks jumped 15-25% overnight through yesterday on the news. This based solely on the news an ETF was going to open up. As I understand it, the ARKX ETF cannot “go public” until 75 days after filing, which would put the ETF as opening up the end of March.

Now, would the opening of an ARKX ETF fund crash TSLA? Of course not. However, why would Cathy Wood open up a Space based ETF when there are only a few companies even in the commercial space business? I believe Cathy Wood knows something… I believe Cathy Wood believes, or has inside knowledge that SPACEX is going to go public. SPACE-X is Elon Musk’s space transport company. If you think people are blindly throwing money at TSLA, they will blindly throw money at SPACEX too. I have family members better off than me already researching how to get in on the IPO. If the past year has taught me anything, its that speculative stocks, like AI, ABNB, anything trendy, pop right after the IPO. A lot of these stocks IPO’d and then immediately tripled in price once they hit the open market. SPACEX is the trendiest of trendy, the shiniest of shiny, maybe even shinier than TESLA. I believe there are tons of investors, retail and institutional that would do anything to get in on the IPO, or on the first trading day of a SPACEX stock. The people interested in SPACEX would be the EXACT SAME people interested in TESLA. Since my argument is that a disproportionate amount of TSLA investors are retail investors, the exact type without “dry powder for additional purchases” I believe the TSLA stock will be hit by the SPACEX announcement. People will simply sell TESLA stock to buy, or be ready to buy SPACEX.

Now, do I think it’s going to bring TESLA back to earth? No. Do I think the announcement of a SPACEX IPO would cause the TESLA stock to drop in the days leading up to the SPACEX IPO… absolutely.

With all that said 2020 is paved with the graves of investors who shorted TESLA. I just believe that the announcement of a SPACEX IPO will lead to a 5-10% drop in TSLA stock in the 72 hours leading up to that IPO.

hitting an all time this morning <pat on the back>

Great insight here. I see good things happening.'

Just as an FYI, for good reading, Cathy Woods just bought a ton of Palantir on Friday!

https://www.benzinga.com/news/20/11/18385850/palantir-gets-boost-from-cathie-wood-george-soros

That is an old article. Soros may be out by now.

But Ark did in fact buy 500,000 shares of PLTR yesterday.

Ah gotcha..

Soros is out.

Any thoughts on WOOF and POSH IPOs? Both down today, putting their market caps at 6-7 billion. Not the sexy tech names most here like though.

Definitely an interesting take, if space x does ipo, I agree it would hurt Tesla stock for sure at least in the short term. What I’ve heard, and it’s of course rumor, that musk would take starlink public and use the funds to funnel into space x. Basically keep control of space x without any outside influence. I think starlink going public would have an effect on Tesla stock just like space x would. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out!

POSH is a great company, I want to own the stock I just have no clue about a good entry point

Still up significantly from ipo of $42. I am not a fan of all these companies doubling their ipo price at start of public trading. To me that means the bankers failed big time in properly pricing the thing...

...that or John Q Public is dot com bubbling the heck out everything...

Oh what the hay, I will go with both.

Just saw this. Yes I would prefer to have a number of higher growth companies, like PLTR, to see how they play out. In a nutshell these companies can’t make money from day one. They need an innovative idea and the employees to bring it to life. This costs money and takes time. If management continues to perform as the product rolls out the stock will do well and smaller companies just getting started have more room to grow. The ones that perform will be the ones that move the indexes higher.

Real life example of individual growth stocks is my Father is a semi regular guy and he retired a little over 10 years ago. He was adamant he didn’t want anyone managing his money including in mutual funds. What he did was look around and saw what was going on then and where the world was headed. He put about $100k in each of these stocks and here are the 10 year returns MSFT +660% AAPL +995% FB +555%. The SaP turned in 192%. If you invested in any of these, including the SaP you would have came out ok, but growth won big during this time. More Growth oriented QQQ would have gotten you 460%. A little history - 10 years ago the 10 largest companies were Wal-Mart, Exxon, Chevron, GE, Conoco Phillips, AT & T, Ford, JP Morgan and HP. Think those lowered the SaP returns over the years until they dropped down? Things changed! 3 oil companies on the list. 3! WTH?! My Dad didn’t quit either he added SHOP at $300 and $400 this past year. He still looks around at what is going on. And he held MSFT FB AND AAPL.

To decide what to buy you need to look around at what is going on now, do some research and take advantage. This changes steadily year by year and sometimes super fast like last year! So last year tech saved us and became more engrained then ever in in our lives. What will become of MELI SE JMIA HUBS NET PINS ROKU NVDA NVTA TWLO FVRR AAXN FTCH ERSY FSLY HUBS ISRG MGNI TTD PYPL SQ RGEN SHOP U and PLTR 3, 5, 10 years from now? I own those long and I am a buy and hold guy myself. Not a trader. These need time! And I own DIS AMZN FB APPL etc also. You need to be willing to down on some also and lose money. Nut all it takes is a few home runs to win the game overall so I swing for the fences with a chunk of my at bats.

On the other side of what the world gives you also look at “what the market gives you”. Last year I also saw what was going on with the non growth side in the market and took advantage. For example you may hear about EPD from time to time here. Last year they were beaten down and I started to buy. I knew the economy would come back at some point and we will be in a yield less world for years. EPD is one I started to load up on. I bought EPD shares at $15,$16, $18, $19. EPD just raised their last dividend so now at .45 a share. So now I am now getting a 10.5%yield average on what I put in. And EPD is at $23 now so my shares went up 35%. Sounds easy but it was not. At the time everyone was saying run from EPD. Too risky! Oil is dead! (They do a ton of natural gas transport though) Run! And this was when company made money, a lot of money. And these transporters will adjust. They will transfer more Hydrogen some day perhaps?? I will hold EPD for years and take my 10.5% yield. Anytime the news or other folks say run from, bad or “too risky”, they are writing for the average investor. Or the media is writing a negative article. Gasp! No way! So research and decide for yourself. It may or may not be for you at the time. After vaccine was announced I still was able to add EPD at $18. The EPD example is to show you don’t have to look at high growth / no profit yet for opportunities. Not all the world is tech EV solar. Epd is a top 5 position for me. And if you said to me a year ago it would be I would say you are Crazy! I also bought SPG MAC STOR etc. Adapt.

My plan from here? So we know what the world is giving us with new tech, medical, solar, EV Etc Innovations. Things will be good for 2021-2022ish in the market I feel but when the Fed starts selling back the bonds they purchased in 2020 that is the signal to start tapping the breaks on equities. Start getting out before others do and don’t hang on squeezing out some last minute gains. And growth will pull back the most but this is due to higher gains to give back. And yes folks will say “I fold you so!” then. It comes with the territory. But it’s still where I feel you want to be for years later. The back drop of “what the world gave us” will still apply then but a possible good hard dip in the near term and correction Mid term will give us another time to go back in and look around to see what the market gives us to buy. Could be growth could be value. We will see. Many moving parts though with the vaccine, Covid, 10 year treasury yields possibly rising, inflation, new tax regulation, market dips etc.. But I still feel growth will win out in the next 10 years and beyond.

Hope this helped explain how I do things. And I was a mutual fund ETF investor with little individual stocks a year ago.

Read this analysis on Ackman and PSTH if you are in it or interested:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4398341-what-bill-ackman-and-pershing-square-tontine-holdings-be-buying

Busy week

That article reads like the person who wrote it didnt notice that PSTH dropped the same time the rest of the market dropped.

Today was very interesting - stocks, metals, commodities, bitcoin - all down. Can't be converting to cash - bonds maybe?

Like I mentioned before, everyone seams to be out with biden. I dumped 90%

It wasn't that bad, and besides right now, there's isn't jack else to put money right now.