It may hit low 80’s

Well, that did not take long.

Get ready for your tax dollars to start supporting the oil producers. I have been living wrong for too many years. I need to go into deep debt and then I can get a bailout, too.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/business/negative-oil-prices-trump-bailout/index.html

"... instructed the secretaries of the Energy and Treasury departments to "formulate a plan" to "make funds available" to help oil and gas companies.

Can USO go to $0.00?

Don’t say that. My dumbass bought some yesterday. I suck at this stock thing.

Mind if I ask why you bought it? What were your thought processes? I don't know how USO works. Still trying to figure it out .

Because I don’t know what I’m doing apparently.

My assumption was that oil is going to rebound as things return to normal. I just figured it’s not like we are going to all of a sudden stop using oil and it would have to come back later this year.

Thought it might be a good idea to buy.

Not sure if should buy more to drive down my share price, or sit on what I have already.

As I said, I appear to be pretty bad at this entire stock thing.

Are we talking a couple hundred or a couple thousand shares?

Only 200 shares. I thought of buying 200 more. I’m trying to stay as liquid as possible right now, but I know it’s a buying opportunity. I’m trying to do a little if I can.

My wife got laid off 4 weeks ago and my side business has ground to a halt. My day job + savings is keeping us a float. I’m just trying to hold onto cash because of the uncertainty.

But on the other hand, I don’t want to be left in the dust if things are on sale. I kicked my 401k up 5% more when this started and thought buying a little stock might be a good idea. Perhaps not.

I like OXY here a lot better than USO, I don’t really understand USO, but I have to assume it will bounce as oil rebounds.. and we know at some point oil will rebound.

Any of you stock ninjas around here have a recommendation? Sit on the USO I have, or buy another 200 shares?

I know it’s peanuts to some of you guys, but you have to start somewhere.

Oil has rebounded to $3.00 per barrel.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/21/investing/oil-prices/index.html

" On Monday, US oil to be delivered in May settled at -$37.60 per barrel, the first negative close in history. That means producers, which are running out of storage space as demand for energy collapses, are willing to pay buyers to take crude off their hands. That's never happened before for West Texas Intermediate futures, the US benchmark."

"There's a lot of oil and no real place to put it right now, so no one wants to take delivery of it," said Randy Giveans, a Jefferies analyst.'
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Storage rates sure have gone up!

"Over the past 10 years, traders or producers would typically spend $25,000 per day in April for a supertanker, or VLCC, which can store 2 million barrels of crude, according to Giveans. That price has now jumped to about $150,000 per day, a sixfold increase, he said.
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My take (and a warm bucket spit): Saudi Arabia wanted Russia to cut production along with SA to get the oil price back up when this virus hit. Russia wants to see the U.S. participate in making cuts, too, and says "No". SA says screw you Russia and turned on the taps. And now everyone is crying uncle.

The U.S. govt. calls for a meeting between SA and Russia in order to get those two to cut production. So, they cut production and I believe the U.S. agrees to cut 100,000 barrels. Only problem is is that SA and Russia did not agree cut enough production to meet the new lower demand.

And unless the U.S. agrees to make larger cuts in U.S. production, SA will keep waving a middle finger salute and will not stop producing until it has no more tankers to fill. That is unless we go over and bomb the hell out of them.

I'm definitely no stock ninja, I'm probably greener than you haha. But I do plan on jumping in on oil soon too, albeit with Canadian oil companies. The big million dollar question is do we hold out until all the tankers are full and oil drops even lower, or do we buy in around now with the assumption help will likely come to the industry before it gets much worse. I don't have a crystal ball to tell, so I will likely mess up my jump in time haha. But it sure is interesting to watch from the sidelines for now.

Were/are you buying it for an investment? Or for a short term trade?

I was figuring a short term thing. Maybe 6-9 months. I figured things would start getting back to normally and it would rebound. I don’t mind holding longer.

Those oil ETFs like USO are pretty much a scam in this environment. If you understand how they work you'll understand why. Lets say the spot price of oil is $10. USO is based on future contracts. Now lets say the June contract is $10 and the July contract is $20. As the days go by, USO is selling at $10 and buying at $20. Every day that they roll contracts forward a month, they lose money even if spot price of oil stays the same. Move forward a month, July has finally sunk to $10 and August is $20. Now they're selling July at $10 and buying August at $20. It's like swimming upstream. Over a long enough time, they will likely go to zero.

This goes for nearly all commodity ETFs. Most are based on futures contracts and future prices are almost always higher than current prices. I believe a few like SLV and GLD literally hold the commodity (silver and gold in this case), so you don't have those futures losses. There's no ETF that holds hundreds of millions of barrels of oil in storage somewhere.

I think it just did. I owned some OILU, went to zippo.

Bottom fishing can be dangerous. Here is a one month chart of USO. If your time frame is 6-9 months out, you might wait and look see some green ink before you start loading up.

Screen Shot 2020-04-21 at 1.31.28 PM (resized).png

Here is a 1 year chart. USO has been in a downtrend since 1st week of January.

Screen Shot 2020-04-21 at 1.34.07 PM (resized).png
I don't think oil rebounds until SA makes a big cutback. And I don't think SA will be motivated to cut production until;

1) It runs out of tankers tankers to fill. Which does no one no good.

or

2) Until it breaks the back of the U.S. shale producers.

I don't think SA will take kindly if the U.S. tries to put the squeeze on---again. IMO, SA and Russia know exactly how much they would need to cut back to meet the new demand level. Think about it. If you are SA, what better time to put the squeeze on your competitor (US) than right now.

This is from the USO prospectus

uso1 (resized).JPG

uso2 (resized).JPG

You make it sound like USO was a sham that was setup just to generate trading commissions. I will not disagree.

Here is a chart of USO will all data. It brings back memories of when gas was $4.00+ gallon in 2008.

Screen Shot 2020-04-21 at 1.42.52 PM (resized).png

Absolutely. The little guy wanted a way to invest in oil, so they invented one. At least it's not leveraged. They're meant for a very short term directional bet, preferably intraday.

USO bouncing now off days low of $2.31 up to $3.07

On a side note I would like to have a little BA in my retirement account.. the question is when to pull the trigger on it.. I’m looking at long term 5 to 10 year time frame.

Nothing like walking into a scam face first. I feel like an ass.

So, basically oil prices are rigged, along with all the BS we are fed yearly about 'quantity'. The world really needs to get away from dependence on oil money. They make record profits, how is it they can't go a month or two on lower demand? They don't need to be pumping constantly, they have no problems shuttering production when it's convenient for them. Sorry, having trouble feeling any empathy for these billionaires and how they run their companies.

My understanding is that the shale producers can't just flip a switch and stop pumping. They are literally paying people to take the oil they pump in some cases because that's cheaper than the cost to shut down a well. It's absurd and really messes up the laws of supply and demand. Those producers need to go bankrupt and not be able to continue business during bankruptcy.

And who gets to buy the bankrupt shale producers' assets? Saudis, Chinese, and Russians? Dont think we want that.

It certainly is a tangled web. Seems a great opportunity to beef up the strategic reserve at least.

I think maybe I should stick to Crypto. It’s less volatile.

What’s wrong with investors from other countries buying insolvent America companies?
Globalization goes both ways, ethicists are not a North America invention.

Most stocks are sold with out worrying about the birthplace of the buyer.

I agree the assets have to stay in the US as it's a strategic asset and security risk, but let the major players like Exxon and Chevron buy them for pennies on the dollar. Then they can let the oil fields sit unused until demand returns.

Nothing if the assets dont have strategic value.

I think that has already been done. And about the first time with cheap prices. GW Bush was filling it up when oil was sky high.

I think it was done last month when oil was $30/barrel.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thestreet.com/.amp/investing/us-oil-falls-below-30-trump-vow-to-fill-spr-to-the-top

Relax. If you invest, or speculate, and you do it for any amount of time, you will have some stories to tell.

Like the time I went to make an online trade and wanted to buy 10 option contracts. Option symbols used and do usually start with the underling stock symbol followed by some letters indicating the expiration month and the strike price.

I don't remember the stock. I will use Boeing (BA) as an example. I was on my trading page and typed in BA XXX. I got my fill. The problem was that BA was for different company and the Boeing symbol was actually BO. So, I had to turn right around and sell the wrong options I bought. Of course, I bought at the ask and sold at the bid and the 3 minute mistake cost me a couple of hundred bucks.

And when you hang out with other traders the best laughter you will hear is from your trader "friends" when you lose on a trade. They will laugh and point fingers and laugh some more. And then tomorrow they will screw up and it is your turn to laugh at them.

...let me tell you about the time I thought Krispy Kreme Donuts were going to be on every street corner...smh

Man, that’s a fact. The first time I had real money to invest was In 2000. Tech seemed like a no-brainer, so I put $30k into QQQ at around $100. I finally sold it a year later for around $15k and said “f this stock market”. If I’d waited another 14 years I could have gotten my money back, lol.

The #1 investing quote I live by is “The bulls get some, and the bears get some, but the hogs get slaughtered.” Treat the market like a game, and you’ll feel like you went to Vegas and didn’t even get the free booze.

But yeah “filling it up” seems to be an indication of poor market timing. That decision didn’t age well at all, now did it?

Short Georgia.

The thing about GA is that 60% of us live in Metro Atlanta, and we’re not going to start going to nail salons and bowling alleys and restaurants just because they’re open again. I’d also say that our rural brothers have a bit of sense too, and we ALL respect our elderly relatives.

here is an oil ETF that had a good day on tuesday.

ProShares UltraShort Bloomberg Crude Oil
[SCO] 54.03 +18.54 (+52.24%)

intraday SCO traded north of $65, up 80%.

2000 was a terrible year. Absolutely horrid. I was in this stock from Sept 1998 and got out in Sept. 2000. You can see that I had nice ride up. But then I got caught in a terrible crash. I got out. In hind site, I got scared out at $2.00 per share. It is a long story.

Screen Shot 2020-04-21 at 9.43.10 PM (resized).png

4 years later the stock had not moved much.

Screen Shot 2020-04-21 at 9.50.55 PM (resized).png

And now that stock chart looks like this:

Screen Shot 2020-04-21 at 9.45.29 PM (resized).png

The stock was Apple Computer. I bought 400 shares for $41.00 per share. AAPL ran up to $150.00 in early 2000 and then backed off In June 2000, AAPL split 2-for-1. I now had 800 shares trading for around $60.00 share. AAPL bounced around all summer from between $55 and $75 per share.

On Sept. ?? 2000, after the market closed, Apple warned. AAPL had closed around $55.00 per share. At the time, my broker did not allow after hours trades. All I could do is watch as I as being sliced and diced. First trade in AH was $38.00 per share. 37,36, 34, 32, 29, 28, etc. I got out the next morning at $22.00 per share. And never went back and that is another long story.

Apple/AAPL went on to split 2 more times. There was another 2-for-1 which would have left me with 1600 shares. And then there was the 7-for-1 split. That would have given me 11,200 shares.

At today's closing price, my 400 shares would have been worth $3,000,000 and change. AAPL's quarterly dividend is now .77 per quarter, or $3.08 per year. My dividend income would have been $35,000.00 annually.

Do I kick myself? Do I 2nd guess myself? For many years I did not. It was trade/an investment. You take your lumps and move on. But when AAPL started climbing in 2005-2006, I did get a little teary eyed. The dividend brought another tear to two.

With those dividends and my social security, I would be making as much as I was when I was working.

Oh, yeah, I paid $41.00 per share. After all the splits my cost basis in AAPL would have been $1.46 per share.

It was a 50 bagger, at least, and I threw it away.

Ain't hind site a wonderful thing?

That was a bad beat!

Sounds like the Walmart heir that sold his shares and bought a lawnmower.

You won't find many people that have owned Apple since 2000. Not unless they worked at the company. Most people would have sold after making a decent profit on fear it would eventually drop. We all have these kind of trades. Same thing happened to me with FB.

Looks like USO will have a reverse split after trading on the 28th

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/uscf-announces-one-eight-reverse-114500706.html

Delta Airlines announced earnings. And it had an early morning pop. Apparently its losses were less than expected. But the pop was short lived and it has pulled back on the red side of flat.

My questions are: Are the airliner stocks going to get a 6 month reprieve with the bailout money backstopping them? Do they just trade flat for the next 6 months?
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Which leads me to the bigger question. Are the markets rigged and propped up by the big boys?

One of the reasons I ask this is because when Joe Suburb started day trading in the 2000-2003 years, there was some blame going around that the day traders were whipping the market around, but on days there was no institutions or broker buying the markets were slow, listless , and dull. I always thought blaming the day traders for market volatility was a red herring.

I am in the camp that the markets should be lower than where they are now currently. It is like they are putting on a levitation act.

When you think of all of the institutions that need this market to stay up and go back up, to me it seems like a lot of strings are being pulled to keep the puppet standing up.

Are they rigged? Or am I tilting at windmills?

That's what they do. Reverse split to get the price up. And then issuers continue to bleed off equity.

There is no way TZA ever traded for $100,000.00 per share. But with several 7-for-1 and 8-for-1 reverse splits it sure looks like it was high flyer.

Screen Shot 2020-04-22 at 10.04.20 AM (resized).png

Same with SKF. No way it ever traded for $3600.00.

Screen Shot 2020-04-22 at 10.04.46 AM (resized).png

And, USO after the 8-for-1 reverse split will look like it traded for $912.00 per share. As time goes on, equity will be slowly bled off and another reverse split will happen.

To the pinsider who bought 200 shares you will now own 25 shares worth around $22.00 per share.

Screen Shot 2020-04-22 at 10.09.33 AM (resized).png

PINS Pinterest up on Snapchat report, SNAP up 30%, PINS is the much better business, balance sheet, profitability wise and growth opportunity fwiw. PINS reports on May 5th. Should be interesting to see what happens.

I can’t wrap my head around USO! Why would anyone ever buy it? It seems like you lose no matter what.