#stocks to buy for big growth

[randyorton66]

The World of Growth Stocks: 3 Top-Ranked Stocks to Buy for Big Growth

Are you ready to supercharge your investment portfolio with high-growth stocks? In this video, we delve into the world of growth investing to uncover 3 top-ranked stocks to buy for big growth. Uber Technologies, Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), and Salesforce.

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Welcome to Financial Life, your go-to destination for all things finance, investing, and wealth-building strategies. In today's video, titled "3 Top-Ranked Stocks," we delve into the dynamic world of investments to bring insights into three stellar companies poised for success.

Join us as we analyze their recent performances, explore their growth prospects, and discuss why they could be the next big winners in your investment journey.

Discover why these companies represent more than just investments—they embody visions of a future ripe with potential. Embrace growth and watch as your portfolio ascends to new heights!

If you found this video helpful, don't forget to like, share, and subscribe to our channel for more content on investment strategies and market trends. Happy investing, and may your portfolio flourish with abundance!

[phoenixyfriend]

I've been thinking about how it might be useful, if not necessarily entirely fulfilling for whatever it is that I need out of them, to ask politicians how they would define a healthy economy, as opposed to just asking them how they would try to ensure a healthy economy.

President Joe Biden took to the White House lectern Friday to tout the healthy economy – strong job creation, lowering inflation and increased workforce participation and job satisfaction. - US News, Sep. 1, 2023

And

"I think we will see a big pickup in growth. We may not see it in the winter quarter...but I’m hopeful that we’ll see it in the spring,” Larry Kudlow, head of the National Economic Council, said on Fox Business. “It’s a fundamentally healthy economy,” he said, touting the 3.5 percent unemployment rate and “tremendous wage gains.” - The Washington Post, Jan. 30, 2020

In both cases they are offering a few signs of a healthy economy, the things that are quantified and measured as indicators, like unemployment, inflation, and wages.

But... wouldn't 'the ability to buy or rent a living space, and food security, for as many people as possible' make more sense?

Yeah, low inflation is the sign of a good economy, but what is the healthy economy actually doing? The jobs being created, are they actually full time and paying a living wage?

Fuck knows how many times a person at the podium has referenced the stock market as a signifier of the economy's health, and we all know that's barely relevant to the lives of us normal people.

I guess the question I'd want to ask politicians is "if the economy's health were measured in percentage of people who are able to afford housing, food, and other essentials on a full-time job with no government assistance, is the economy actually healthy?"

Low inflation means jackshit if the minimum wage is still no inflation. Job creation means something, but not if it's so far from your home that you spend most of your paycheck commuting. 'Tremendous wage gains' don't mean much if you're looking at an average that includes the CEOs and allows their paychecks to skew the data upwards.

How many of your citizens can afford housing, groceries, and medical care on a full-time wage, without government assistance?

[batfamscreaming]

Once again trapped in trying to figure out what Wayne Industries actually Does. "Everything!" yeah sure but they had to get there somehow. Amazon was an online bookstore at first there was a lot of very rapid growth between then and now.

Usually I hear that they started as a shipping business which makes sense when Gotham is 90% waterfront, but at some point they had to transition from just shipping other people's things to shipping things they made as well. I suppose if they started making their own transports for shipping (starting with their own steamboats and later trains and cars) that would make sense. Maybe in the industrial revolution they even bought their own steel mill upon getting tired of having fluctuating prices or a steel shortage and just deciding they were going to get their own damn steel and sell the extra instead. If they chose to manufacture higher quality steel instead of cheapest possible steel that's also laying the groundwork for them to be well liked by their customers. Not railroad barons but making the steel to lay the railroad and build the trains. It's the 1800s so they have a couple patented medicines by then as well that are.... not really medicine but no one has officially noticed yet. They ship their own chemicals out west for a good time.

In 1880s Alan Wayne makes the building that becomes Wayne Tower?? Which I think is much too early, but apparently we were building sky scrapers in 1888 so business must have been booming I fucking guess. This is also the man that has them go corporate.

Of course the railroads start to fall out with the growth of cars and car lobbying. They are still used along with boats for transport but with railroads not being built as much and not being maintained and the union wars, Wayne Industries has to make a pivot somewhere to stay in the race. The family can have a lot of personal money but the business itself is still going strong in Gotham even before Bruce takes over.

I guess if they're already in shipping, they're probably importing as well by then. They may have started with steamboats but then in WWI and WWII all steel factories started producing things for the war efforts, surely they made a couple big ships by then capable of crossing the Atlantic, if they weren't already in oceanic shipping by then. It lets them ride out the great depression because of government maritime subsidies that were a little out of control until the new deal kicked in. That would've also presumably kept WI employees working in the depression and cemented them harder in the city as smaller businesses closed around them.

The patented medicine starts shifting to actual generics that are a little less Heroic post 1918.

Maybe at around that point was when WI started manufacturing... sort of everything. You get your ships, and all the things on board that you need to run a ship. You get your ovens and stoves and big pots and your radar and hell your sailors can even buy their boots and uniforms from us.

When WWII ends they shift back to transporting other people's goods but also maybe more luxury vehicles as well. Cruise services. Some nicer kitchen installations. Kitchens on land even. Get a nice WI electric mixer. Get your waterfront boots. Get your generic ibuprofen.

At that point we're closer to Martha and Thomas' era and they're just... Along for the ride I guess. Thomas is a figurehead CEO. He's off doing medical school and mostly just shows up for formalities, while Martha works in the Wayne Foundation (either the only thing Thomas really made or opened in the 60s to try and get Gotham really booming) as a charity liason. They're still not really celebrities as much as a charismatic couple in high circles. WI doesn't need them to function. It's basically just funding them as they do their own things.

And then the murders happen

And then Bruce, over eighteen, shows up having inherited the figurehead CEO title and his entire family's controlling stock in WI, and announces they're going to be doing things his way now.

The CEO/Board of directors is supposed to do things in the best interest of their stock holders.

If Bruce is the controlling stock holder, they do what he says his best interest is.

[bomberqueen17]

farm life

Am at the farm. Just gonna witter on uninterestingly about that behind the cut because I"m too tired to be interesting.

Initially we were going to make chicken sausage this week but BIL decided not to, but then when I said I was coming anyway, he decided to cut up some chickens.

In past years they've always sold out of chicken parts way before they've sold out of whole chickens. But a couple of years ago a chef friend told him there was nothing really wrong with thawing a chicken, cutting it up, and refreezing the parts, and initially we were just thawing whole chickens to cut up to grind into sausage, but we did some tests and determined that actually, no, there's really no discernible loss of quality in the parts. So now we don't sell out of chicken breasts in December anymore, but can keep bringing them to market all winter.

So this year we took the whole chickens out of the store, stopped bringing them to market, and are *only* selling the parts, and are saving the whole chickens to thaw and cut up and refreeze as parts. It's working great. It's more work, but it's more profit, and also more sales. People just don't buy whole chickens that much.

So anyway we cut up 88 chickens, and saved like 60 of the carcasses into a pair of huge stock pots. Packaged all the parts up, labeled and weighed them, then put the stock pots on to boil. Today we packaged 89 quarts of chicken stock. I was going to deep-clean the commercial kitchen, but it's not ready for the full spring treatment: we're still washing eggs in there, which means baskets full of chicken-shitty eggs are coming in and getting set on the floor. So I just cleaned and sanitized the heck out of the stuff we were using, and also the floor drain, but have held off. In April when the temps don't go below freezing at night anymore, when the vegetable washing station can move out of the eviscerating room so the egg washing can move back in there, *then* I will haul all the big equipment out and wash the whole room from the ceiling to the walls to the floors to the back of the grinder, under the mixer, under the fridge, under the freezer, all of it is getting powerwashed within an inch of its life.

But not this trip.

Next week we're making pork sausage.

I have been taking my dose of adderall at 8am immediately before I go out to work. It's hard to judge the efficacy, actually, because I'm so busy and so rarely totally self-directed. The real test would be to have me have a day of idleness and half a dozen things I need to accomplish. But I can concretely observe that I don't get a sort of dizzy head rush when it kicks in anymore, and I don't crash around 3 or 4 pm anymore. No, instead I'm just physically exhausted at that time, but it's understandable that I would be, because despite my best efforts to work out all winter, I am in no way prepared for the amounts of heavy lifting, repetitive movements, and sheer mileage you have to walk around here.

Today I finished cleaning the kitchen and then spent a couple of hours with my trusty old pruners, helping Farmsister and Veg Man harvest pussy willows to sell at market in decorative bundles. They just chainsawed the trees off a couple inches above the ground, and then we went at them with pruners and only took the nice branches, and the rest are going through the woodchipper to be mulch. VegMan pointed out the line they'd cut back to last year: this is how you coppice willows, and you can harvest them like this every year. They were fifteen feet tall, all new growth.

Soon we'll have daffodils. Mom had too many at her house, and a couple years ago she and Dad dug up buckets and buckets of them and brought them over and we dug a trench in the hillside and tipped them in. And now they're about ready to be divided again, LOL.

We have pullet eggs too. The chickens are laying pretty well, manageable amounts. We've started packing the eggs by weight, which is a little time-consuming.

OK that's enough wittering. Have I got any photos? Hmm.

the view from the little creek down into the Quackenkill, alongside the back of the old granary. Morning, sun coming through the trees and lighting up the red-stained old siding, the neighbor's house visible at the other end of the cut.

2. A pig friend, muddy snoot questing toward the camera in the sunshine of the winter livestock barn, which has a plastic south-facing roof to let in all the light it can.

3. Farmsister, in her chainsaw chaps and safety gear, chainsawing down the pussy willows in front of the solar panels. (They measured, before they planted the little trees; they'd have to be 40 feet tall to block the light on the solar panels in any season, which I don't think a pussy willow would do, but it's still important to prune them back whether we harvest them for the catkins or not.)

That's all, happy spring. I'm so tired.

[chronotsr]

No. 7.5 - 1978 Reflections, and the Halls of Mystery

Welcome back to the end-of-the-year recaps! This is technically the first TSR iteration of it!

1. Coolest ideas

It's a lot of stuff from D2. The big ticket item is "neutral-ground hostile shrine" -- any time you can muck about with otherwise hostile people without drawing swords immediately is a big win. I know that the reaction table is supposed to mitigate that some but, cmon. Sometimes you just can't think of a good reason that the 9th goblin pack tonight is not immediately hostile. This is a way more natural way to handle it. And it lets you talk and such and experience their culture from their perspective!

2. Coolest Module You Haven't Heard Of

This is honestly a hard one because all of these modules are intensely well known. Gun to my head, I would probably vote for G1. The D-series is cool but frankly there have been more better and more interesting iterations of subterranean hexcrawls -- Veins of the Earth being the currently famous one. But the thing about G1 is, G1 is a surprisingly natural and fun location. Unlike the others in the GDQ series, G1 is genuinely an adventure you could slot anywhere with no context. It is simply a fun raid on a fortress, which I never get tired of. The twists of "they're piss drunk" and "there's a slave revolt in the basement" are really good (albeit in 2024 a little stale) twists on the classic raid-on-fortress formula.

3. The Growth of Module Design

Honestly 1978 represents a rather stagnant year for module design. The most innovative design feature I see is how D1-D3 feeds into one another in a much more naturalistic way than its predecessors, and all through that deeply useful combination of hexmap and random tables with a handful of pre-programmed setpieces. I am eager to see hexmap technology get much better going forward.

…

Surprisingly, 1978 wasn't too much to talk about? I don't generally think of Gary as an "innovator" in module design space. His main contribution is taking things that already exist and making them feel more natural. Which is not to say that I now buy into Gygaxian Naturalism as this great feat, more than a lot of his competition at the time was seemingly intentionally anti-Naturalism. Their work feels like the reaction to me, Gary is just staying the course of "this should make an amount of sense". Although, his random dungeon monsters mishmash still feels as nonsensical as all hell.

The Halls of Mystery (From Dragon 21, December 1978)

And as threatened, we're going to have a very brief section on The Halls of Mystery, which holds the dubious honor of 1st Dragon Magazine dungeon. I would throw the full header at you, but everything is by Don Turnbull. You may recognize his name, at publication time he works for Games Workshop and he will be heading up TSR, Inc.'s UK branch starting in 1980, leading to the much-beloved Fiend Folio.

So. Not much to say about this, actually, It's a very large room with some branches. The main schtick of the Halls is that the main chamber contains several mirrors, some of which are magical. There's a big riddle on the desk on the south side, the riddle solution is actually quite obvious (say Excalibur three times -- and hey, Don told us the answer and rationale of the puzzle! Thanks Don!). When you move the central cylinder, it teleports you to the corresponding position in the dungeon. The rest is a lightweight stocking of the dungeon with monsters, treasure, et c. If you're keeping score, this is a Zelda puzzle. It's very cute and lightweight and honestly it's so neutrally written (no statistics are given and it would be trivially easy to restock it at any level) that you could genuinely use it in 2024 with very little effort. It's adorable! It is also wonderfully lean, clocking in at two total pages and frankly it's super refreshing to have such a light read of a module here.

Happily, next time we will be covering B1 - In Search of the Unknown, which is the second Basic D&D adventure we will be reviewing in this series (The adventure printed in the Basic rulebook, Tower of Zenopus, was first. This is our first lettered Basic adventure.) And, funnily, the first TSR module in this lineup I've never read before. See you then!

[kemetic-dreams]

In the stock market, a short squeeze is a rapid increase in the price of a stock owing primarily to an excess of short selling of a stock rather than underlying fundamentals. A short squeeze occurs when demand has increased relative to supply because short sellers have to buy stock to cover their short positions.

What's a Short Squeeze and Why Does It Happen?

Key Points

A stock that rallies hyperbolically when there are no obvious current events driving the response, could be experiencing a short squeeze.

A short squeeze can potentially be worth trading, but only if you exercise great care.

The aim of short selling is to generate profit from a stock that declines in value. (Short selling involves borrowing a security whose price you think is going to fall from your brokerage and selling it on the open market. Your plan is to then buy the same stock back later—hopefully for a lower price than you initially sold it for—and pocket the difference after repaying the initial loan.) While there are potential benefits to going short, there are also plenty of risks. One big risk is when a bullish catalyst (earnings, news, technical event, etc.) pushes the stock price higher, prompting short sellers to "head for the exits" all at once. As the shorts scramble to buy back and cover their losses, upward momentum can build on itself, causing the stock to move sharply higher. This is known as a short squeeze.

Understanding the short squeeze

What makes a short squeeze so dangerous? Think of it this way: When you buy a stock, the worst thing it can do is drop to zero. But the upside is unlimited. If a stock has a growth narrative and there are enough believers, the share price can go well beyond what looks reasonable by traditional fundamental metrics.

Classic signs of a short squeeze can include:

A security has a significant amount of short sellers (short interest) who believe the stock price is going to fall, and then instead the stock price sharply rises, forcing many of these leveraged short sellers to quickly exit their positions, buying back the stock in the face of potentially increasing losses.

A dynamic narrative that tries to justify the detachment of share prices from a company's intrinsic value

A case for massive growth as well as for financial stress

Traders with deep pockets aligned on both sides of the trade, often using options and other leveraged instruments

With GameStop (GME) in 2021 and Tesla (TSLA) in 2020, there were many classic signs of a short squeeze. Traders with short positions were covering because they had to, either because they had sustained large losses or shares were no longer available to be borrowed. In 2022, short sellers targeted troubled companies such as Bed, Bath & Beyond (BBBY) and Carvana (CVNA). In early 2023, the most heavily shorted companies included Coinbase Global (COIN), a cryptocurrency firm, and Occidental Petroleum (OXY).

When a stock suddenly experiences a dramatic climb, with or without good news, it's important to ask yourself, "Who would buy shares up here?" The answer? Someone who doesn't have enough money to hold on any longer, or someone whose pain threshold has finally been crossed.

Proceed with caution

If you're a long-term investor who happens to own a stock that's getting squeezed, it's probably not a good time to trade. Instead of acting on emotions, remember what got you to where you are in your investing journey—and where you'd like to be. If buying a stock that's in squeeze territory doesn't fall within your long-term objectives, you might want to step aside and not trade. If you do decide to venture in, make sure you have no illusions and no misconceptions of the dangers. Understand that when you’re dealing with a stock that’s being squeezed, you're taking a big risk. 

Identifying a short squeeze can be relatively simple—after the fact. The trick is to identify the conditions that could lead to a squeeze ahead of time, and then determine how you might want to play it (or not). 

Shorting a stock is a complicated business. Because you can't sell something you don't own, shorting requires the seller to "borrow" the stock (and pay interest to the stock lender), then sell it. Locating the shares can sometimes be difficult for your clearing firm because of high demand or a small number of outstanding shares.

Measuring a short squeeze can involve a metric called the short interest ratio, a.k.a. "days to cover." It indicates, in days, how long it would take to cover or buy back all the shorted shares. Basically, you divide the number of shares sold short by the average daily trading volume. The more days to cover, the more pronounced the effect can be.

Another measure is "short interest as a percentage of float," which reflects the number of short-sold shares in proportion to the total number of shares available for trading in the public markets. Most stocks have a small amount of short interest, usually in the single digits. The higher that percentage, the greater the bearish sentiment may be around that stock. If the short % of the float reaches 10% or higher, that could be a warning sign.

Consider the fundamentals

If you're buying a stock that seems to be in the throes of a short squeeze, especially at high levels, it helps to understand other potential reasons why the stock might be moving. 

Consider checking the fundamentals. Is there anything that would make you want to own the stock? Are you tempted to buy it because everyone else is? It's important to always do your homework, and remember it's never wise to go all in. A stock that's in a short squeeze may still have a long way to climb, and if you don't think the fundamentals support higher prices, then perhaps you should look elsewhere.

In the case of TSLA in 2020, there were some positive fundamentals underlying the short squeeze, including the company's more consistent profitability and hopes of it being included in the S&P 500 Index (SPX). The stock saw its share price run up to new highs, then decline nearly 60%. 

But then TSLA rallied again and split its shares, and its addition to the SPX became a reality, illustrating that a short squeeze doesn't always have to end badly. Other stocks that were caught up in short squeezes haven't always fared so well, in part because they didn't have the fundamental support. 

Playing the squeeze on the long side? 

If you want to trade a stock during what might be a short squeeze—that is, buying a stock with a higher short interest in order to potentially play the upside of a squeeze—here are some things to consider:

Trading such a stock may be okay as long as you understand the risk and how to control it. Whether you make small or large trades, you have to control and limit the risk. Decide how much money you would be comfortable losing in any trade ahead of time.

Don't underestimate how high the stock can go and how long it can take. When a stock gets caught up in a short squeeze, analysts generally expect it to correct eventually, but no one knows to what price and when; if it happens at all. 

If the stock still has very weak fundamentals, yet is moving significantly higher without any real, structural changes in the corporation, then be extremely careful buying on this type of upward momentum. The markets may run out of new buyers willing to pay higher and higher prices and the stock may in the end fall quickly. 

The bottom line

A short squeeze is a high-risk situation and it may cause havoc in the market, but most don't last forever. Most eventually subside.

[cathkaesque]

As a stab at an explanation for why this site’s management (and others) is acting like this - none of these big websites have ever made any money. I don’t think it’s possible for them ever to make money. Instead, these sites have always survived off their ability to potentially make money, with investors subsidising these platforms via betting on them on the stock exchange. Investors had both infinite money for the last decade due to quantitative easing and low interest rates, and social media platforms easily showed their potentiality for making money via their rapid growth.

Now, that’s no longer an option - investors have less cash to throw at structurally unprofitable properties now interest rates are being raised, so social media companies are now trying to demonstrate their potential profitability by rack renting their userbases. This is destroying their sites. Tumblr emulating twitter, introducing features that users do not use but sound like they could be the next Twitch like Tumblr live, is designed to encourage investors to speculate on tumblr’s stock - given twitter’s collapse, tumblr could be the new twitter, so investors should buy its stock in order to help it bridge a $30m deficit grow into that. It won’t work however. It’ll just ruin the whole thing.

[zangren-signal]

Howdy employees, consumers, citizens... got some tough news for y'all... We seem to be havin' some kinda economic crash, ain't like nothin' we've seen before. I ain't got a clue what's goin' on, so... we're goin' live to the stock exchange, have a looksee what's goin' on, and have a talk with my stockbroker, Nixeng. Nixeng, ya there?

"Howdy boss... as you can see, its kinda chaos down here. I'll try and make sense of this for you and everyone watching... In the past five hours we've seen systems get overloaded, crash, go offline, and restart. I figure the systems just couldn't handle the speed some of these changes went at, it lagged out and had to restart to catch up. Techies are on the job to make sure something like this doesn't happen again. Anyway, to the meat of it... The value of the stocks of some of the biggest tech companies in the Oligarchy have fallen well beyond what coulda been expected. And in its place, the value of a new start up company's stocks has skyrocketed. Folks are panicking, selling their stocks in the declining companies and buying into the growth of the new. But where this new company, Ascension Co, comes from isn't clear. We know the company's leader registered anonamously and for the past week or so they've been following really good stock options, making a lot of zies. As for the company itself, all we know is that its new, legitimate and authenticated... otherwise it wouldn't be on the exchange... and it's marked as specialising in technology, machinery, electronics, and computing software and hardwear. Personally, I don't think there's anything to worry about. Some savvy businesszangren out there just knows how to play the stock exchange and decided to get more involved. Out with the old and in with the new... and don't you worry either, boss... I've already gone ahead and cut you free from those sinking ships and put you in for the stocks in the rocketing Ascension Co. My advice to folks out there is to cash out and buy in, now."

Well... thank ya for lookin' out for me, Nixeng. Yer a star. We needed some fresh blood in the tech game, but ain't this gonna cause some massive problems?

"Well yeah... lots of Zangren are gonna be out of the job, lots of companies are gonna liquidate their assets. Other companies are gonna have to change over their tech industry suppliers. The value of the zie is gonna drop... a lot... for a time. Other industries are gonna feel the ripples of that, ain't nothing gonna be left uneffected. There's gonna be growing pains, but that's the cost of business. Another piece of advice I can give is buy gold pressed zies... those ain't going no where."

Ah! No worries... I got a ton of that, I'm safe, unlike viewers watchin' who haven't yet bought gold pressed zies. Thanks, Nixeng, I'll see ya around. Looks like that's it folks, prepare for big changes and try not to panic. And like he said, buy gold pressed zies! Buy now! BUY! Bye!

[exitrowiron]

Investing 101

Part 2 of ?

In my last post I explained what stocks are, why companies might want to issue shares and some of the types of stocks. I also explained dividends and why some stocks are called Growth and others called Value stocks. The next logical question is, "How do I buy stocks?"

For most beginning investors, their 401K or IRA is their first opportunity to purchase stock. My recommendation to my kids (which I followed myself) is to set your 401K withholding at least high enough to earn the maximum employer match. Most employers will match a fixed percentage of an employee's 401K withholdings up to a maximum amount. Not withholding at least enough to get the maximum employer match is like taking a salary cut. This is 'free money' from your employer but only you save enough to take advantage of it. 401K plans are almost always administered by a large brokerage firm and through that firm participants are offered a variety of investment options, some more limited than others. I will talk a bit more about the various investments options later.

If you're already investing in your 401K and you still have after-tax funds you'd like to invest (in stocks or other investments), there are a few options.

The simplest, lowest cost option is a direct stock purchase plan (DSPP) which enables individual investors to purchase stock directly from the issuing company without a broker. I've never done this, but it's possible and if you're a big fan of a company and want to be a long term investor, you may want to consider it.

The more common approach is to open an account with a Broker. From Investopedia, "Brokerage firms are licensed to act as a middleman who connects buyers and sellers to complete a transaction for stock shares, bonds, options, and other financial instruments. Brokers are compensated in commissions or fees that are charged once the transaction has been completed." When you open an account with a broker, they take care of all trading paperwork and send you investment reports and tax forms.

ETrade and RobinHood are examples of Discount Brokers (low cost, self-service). They execute your trades (buying and selling) for very low fees and include online resources for the investor to research investments. It is easy to set an up account online and start trading using their mobile apps.

Full Service Brokers like Morgan Stanley, Ameriprise, Edward Jones, etc. operate on the other end of the spectrum. These firms execute trades like the self-service brokers but their account relationships include the services of a Financial Advisor. Ostensibly, the Financial Advisor is periodically meeting with you to review your portfolio, rebalancing your investments to ensure continued alignment with your goals and risk tolerance and recommending investments to buy and sell. Financial advisors generally charge an annual fee of 1% or more of the value of your portfolio. These brokerage firms also have online investment research materials, but the idea is that the Financial Advisor is actively helping you steer the ship.

Alternatively, you can consult a Certified Financial Planner (CFP). These individuals can help manage your broader financial life (including investments, budgeting, insurance needs assessment, estate planning), though CFPs generally aren't brokers (i.e. they don't execute stock trades). Rather than charging a percentage of your portfolio as a fee, CFPs generally have a fixed hourly rate. That hourly rate might seem steep, but it is almost always less than the fee of a full service broker/Financial Advisor.

Assuming you're already investing enough in your 401K to get your employer match, which investing/broker relationship should you pursue? Because full service Financial Advisor fees are a % of your portfolio, these advisors tend to pursue relationships with wealthier clients. If you don't have a large portfolio, it can be difficult get the time/attention of a full service broker. (True story, 30 years ago a friend who was also our financial advisor fired Beth and I as clients when his firm raised its minimum portfolio threshold to exclusively service wealthy clients. I'd like to think he regrets that decision now.) A caveat to this is if your parents have an established relationship with a broker/advisor - then that advisor may be more enthusiastic about managing the adult child's portfolio. (Yes, this is an example of white privilege.)

If you're just starting out (ex <$100K portfolio), I think engaging a fee-based CFP 2-3x a year and opening a Discount Brokerage account is the way to go.

I know several investors with large portfolios who also prefer the Discount Broker strategy, however, because they loathe the idea of paying 1% of their portfolio every year to a financial advisor. There is plenty of research supporting this strategy for large portfolios... after all 1% every year really adds up. Over 20-30 years the 1% annual fee can be very expensive. Despite this, Beth and I have always used a Full Service Advisor.

Beth and I are both CPAs and financially literate, why would we pay the higher fees for a Full Service Advisor? We pay an advisor so we can sleep at night. When I was still working I checked my portfolio balance no more than once or twice a month. I check it more often now, but that's mostly because I simply have more free time. I've never spent any mental energy trying to research good investments. Most importantly, I've never had any emotional attachment to an investment. Every quarter or so we will meet with our advisor and he recommends investments we should sell, either because they haven't performed well or sometimes because they have performed well and have 'topped out'. I never feel any guilt or blame for investments that haven't done well because I didn't originate the investment idea when we bought it. I don't feel tempted to hang on to the investment in hopes that it will rebound and I will be proven right. I can be completely objective and devoid of emotion. And that's one of the reasons I've never lost any sleep over our investments.

Next installment - what to buy.

[yourdreamboyyy]

I don't think so if i will find anyone here who is learning or reading about stock market...but i am currently reading a book by Sir Peter Lynch and sharing some simple points i found out...

Here are some pointers from this section:

• Understand the nature of the companies you own and the specific reasons for

holding the stock. (“It is really going up!” doesn’t count.)

• By putting your stocks into categories you’ll have a better idea of what to

expect from them.

• Big companies have small moves, small companies have big moves.

• Consider the size of a company if you expect it to profit from a specific

product.

• Look for small companies that are already profitable and have proven that their

concept can be replicated.

• Be suspicious of companies with growth rates of 50 to 100 percent a year.

• Avoid hot stocks in hot industries.

• Distrust diversifications, which usually turn out to be diworseifications.

• Long shots almost never pay off.

• It’s better to miss the first move in a stock and wait to see if a company’s plans

are working out.

• People get incredibly valuable fundamental information from their jobs that

may not reach the professionals for months or even years.

• Separate all stock tips from the tipper, even if the tipper is very smart, very

rich, and his or her last tip went up.

• Some stock tips, especially from an expert in the field, may turn out to be

quite valuable. However, people in the paper industry normally give out tips on drug stocks, and people in the health care field never run out of tips on the

coming takeovers in the paper industry.

• Invest in simple companies that appear dull, mundane, out of favor, and

haven’t caught the fancy of Wall Street.

• Moderately fast growers (20 to 25 percent) in nongrowth industries are ideal

investments.

• Look for companies with niches.

• When purchasing depressed stocks in troubled companies, seek out the ones

with the superior financial positions and avoid the ones with loads of bank

debt.

• Companies that have no debt can’t go bankrupt.

• Managerial ability may be important, but it’s quite difficult to assess. Base your

purchases on the company’s prospects, not on the president’s resume or

speaking ability.

• A lot of money can be made when a troubled company turns around.

• Carefully consider the price-earnings ratio. If the stock is grossly overpriced,

even if everything else goes right, you won’t make any money.

• Find a story line to follow as a way of monitoring a company’s progress.

• Look for companies that consistently buy back their own shares.

• Study the dividend record of a company over the years and also how its

earnings have fared in past recessions.

• Look for companies with little or no institutional ownership.

• All else being equal, favor companies in which management has a significant

personal investment over companies run by people that benefit only from

their salaries.

• Insider buying is a positive sign, especially when several individuals are buying

at once.

• Devote at least an hour a week to investment research. Adding up your

dividends and figuring out your gains and losses doesn’t count.

• Be patient. Watched stock never boils.

• Buying stocks based on stated book value alone is dangerous and illusory. It’s

real value that counts.

• When in doubt, tune in later.

• Invest at least as much time and effort in choosing a new stock as you would in

choosing a new refrigerator.

#keeplearning

[longwindedbore]

* At the heart of this investigation is RealPage, a software and consulting firm that allegedly orchestrates price-fixing among large corporate landlords. RealPage’s system, which is owned by Thoma Bravo, one of the largest private equity firms in the U.S., provides rental price recommendations to landlords. These recommendations are based on detailed real-time data shared by landlords, including pricing, inventory, and occupancy rates. RealPage’s influence is extensive, affecting rents for 70% of multi-family apartment buildings and 16 million units across the country.

The scheme allegedly works by encouraging landlords to adopt RealPage’s pricing recommendations, which they do 80-90% of the time. This coordinated effort among landlords to follow the software’s suggestions drives up rental prices by reducing the availability of units. As one of RealPage’s architects reportedly stated, the goal is to prevent landlords from undervaluing their properties, thereby ensuring higher rents nationwide.*

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EDITORIAL

Is there a difference in the DOJ between administrations?

YES: both political parties, including presidential candidates, accept donations from Big Corporations, and Political Action Committees (often the same entities).

HOWEVER there is a SIGNIFICANT DIFFERENCE between policies of administrations and legislative majorities.

OBVIOUSLY we live in a corrupt system resistant to change.

The Rich and their surrogates in institutions lecture the 95% of us that we should be investing (or tithing) instead of buying I-phones or lattes, food, etc.

In actuality the Rich aren’t ‘investing’ to create new markets and growth. As was more the case in times past.

Instead they’re wealth comes from hegemonic depredations which they can easily hide with their hegemony on the media.

The stock market has changed from a means to raise capital for new ventures to a gigantic legalized Ponzi scheme to drive up the value of the stock bonuses that are 90% of the compensation for the top floor execs and directors so that they can borrow against their monopoly-money value.

Voting could change this

The old anti-trust laws are on the books. We could have done this in the Obama Admin.

Alas, the #%^*£€¥ ‘progressives’ who failed to vote in the off-year 2010 elections wiped out Dems large majotlrities in Congress

The loss of the majorities torpedoing any chance of Obama resurrecting the anti-trust laws, the Congress and DOJ investigating the ‘derivatives’ Ponzi scheme and breaking up the ‘too big to fail’ banks. Then the aerospace duopoly, pharmaceuticals, insurance bastards, etc.

Not voting matters!

And, yeah, “voting within the system won’t change the system”. No shit?

Did “punishing the Dems” improve things when #%^*¥£€> ‘progressives didn’t vote their MAJORITIES in 1968, 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2004, 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2022???

[xchief-global]

🔥 «Smart Money»: Why Buffett Won't Buy Tesla

Musk missed again: his media arrogance did not bring profit. After information about the sale of Apple’s shares, Berkshire Hathaway offered "old man Warren" to purchase Tesla shares, to which he received a polite but clear refusal from the fund’s managers. ⠀ "This is an obvious step!" Musk wrote in a post on X, suggesting that he combine his claims to technical leadership with the business wisdom of a market guru. "We only buy what we like," Buffett once again said. ⠀ Recall: Buffett is committed to a long-term strategy of investing in companies that he understands well and that have strong financial performance. Such shares must have:

low price-to-book ratio and positive beta tests,

high dividend payout ratios and profit growth rates. ⠀ Alas, Tesla, along with its growth potential, has an extremely high degree of risk, minimal stability, and meets only one of the necessary criteria. Additionally, Berkshire Hathaway prefers to invest in companies with low to moderate valuations, while Tesla shares have experienced significant growth in recent years and traded at fairly high multiples. ⠀ Finally, Buffett may simply not see the profit potential in Tesla or not share the global vision of the company's management. So it's unlikely that Tesla stock will be the "accidental big opportunity" that the guru mentioned at Berkshire Hathaway's last annual meeting. ⠀ By the way, only in 2014, instead of his old 2006 Cadillac DTS, Buffett bought a Cadillac XTS for $45,000. Moreover, according to his admission, he made this purchase under pressure from his daughter, who stated that it was simply a shame for the business tycoon to drive an old car. He still uses this traditional car and has no intention of changing anything. ⠀ I just don't like you, Elon Musk. And Tesla is yours too.

[spurgie-cousin]

Hard same on the “struggles are just a lesson that god is using to teach you something” and extracting yourself from the “all of this is in god’s plan/everything happens for a reason” excuse, and I went to a fairly normal church (Episcopalian). But they taught those things (predestination? predetermination? I think?) in kindergarten in a very watered down version, so even if you never put any real stock in that belief, it just stuck to you the whole way through Sunday school. And then after like 4 family members die of incurable illnesses in the span of 5 years you continue to have moments of thinking “why and how the fuck would any of this be god’s plan?” but there’s never any good answer you can come up with beyond “is he some kind of sadist”

And as far as “god gives his toughest battles to his strongest soldiers”? Draft a different soldier, big guy, I’m dodging this one✌🏻

(cw: death, suicide mentions)

Yes exactly, all of that. I'm not sure if the example you used of 4 family members passing away was something that actually happened to you (if it is I'm so terribly sorry💔) but I had a very similar experience of losing a handful of close family in rapid succession to cancer, to drug overdose, to self harm, etc. And that very much brought me to that "what kind of sadist are you???" place.

And the worst, the absolute worst part of the whole "god makes you suffer to teach you lessons" mindset is that if you go through something really particularly horrible, and bring up how kind of fucked up it is that god just decided to put you through that for 'moral growth', they have the world's biggest and most vague cop out: "No one can understand god's plan/he works in mysterious ways/he is wiser than us and we can never understand" etc etc etc which might be the most infuriating response someone can give you when you are contemplating whether or not you want to still even be alive.

One thing I think about when I get stuck in old, guilt-ridden thought patterns is that quote they found etched onto the wall of cell block in a Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp that was something like "if there is a god, he will have to beg for my forgiveness". Like........you're going to tell me that person who was tortured and starved and locked in isolation for months, maybe years, maybe for the rest of their life, was there for moral growth??? You're going to tell me that happened because they needed to "learn" a certain lesson that god could only teach them this way?? I don't buy it I'm sorry I just don't. If that's how it really is, god is evil.

He has all this power, he could literally just telepathically insert the lessons into our brains or have us born knowing them, and he chooses to torture some people instead??? Sorry I want no part of it.

[aviculor]

I ordered new plants for my garden, mostly dwarf lavender and dwarf rosemary as they purportedly deter mice and rats. The lack of burrows around where my existing lavender is supports this. The lavender seller also had some sage which I read to have the same effect. I would have loved to buy a couple more, but they were low in stock. I also got more "Wizard of Ahhs" Veronica, big fan of that one. Lovely shade of indigo flowers. And there was a lovely cultivar of Pulmonaria called "Shrimp on the Barbie" that I simply couldn't resist. I should probably be thinking more about summer and fall blooms, but there's plenty of time for that. My garden isn't quite ready for Spring Cleanup yet, but I did give it a preliminary rake now that the forecast isn't calling for any more freezes. Also to make sure there aren't any putrefying rat corpses where I can step on them. Again.

I've seen new growth budding on my rose bush and Hydrangea, very excited about that. It also seems as if my Digitalis never died off, so I'm looking forward to seeing if it reblooms. It has been a pretty mild winter, after all.

[danonrealestate]

The California Effect and the opportunities it provides

This has been a phenomenon for some time that a lot of real estate agents are jumping on, especially in Arizona and Nevada. So basically the California effect is a migrational pattern of Californians who leave the state for financial and personal reasons and settle into states like Nevada, Arizona and Texas.

The fear of a lot of these residents stems from the fact that there are now so many Californians that the rents and prices are going up. I’ve read comments by a lot of different people who talk about how rents in Northern Arizona have went up by 300% because of the influx of Californians.

It is kind of a very interesting pattern of people and has shown that where Californians settle they usually turn the area similar into California subconsciously and without even thinking.

Take the phenomenon in Austin, Texas for example, many many Californians went to that one specific area and a lot of large California companies followed suit and eventually turned that area into the next Los Angeles and San Francisco.

It’s interesting because there is a phenomenon about California where it is so big to the point that it has influence throughout the rest of the country. And it shows that it has more influence in neighboring states than Texas does in neighboring states there.

Although Idaho was hit much more by this phenomenon, Utah remains relatively untouched. Probably due to Utah having a very strong Mormon Identity and culture.

So who’s moving into California? Mostly the very wealthy and the very poor. California has a huge homeless problem where a lot of homeless from all over the country tend to migrate to California for safe havens but also very wealthy people migrate as well.

Which is why an apartment in the worst part of town is now costing 2000$ a month. Where does this come into effect and to understand this phenomenon? This is actually not a planned phenomena, this is more of a cause and effect for the difficulties of not being able to live in California.

Whether you believe Newsom is a good governor or not, there will always be a problem of migration going out of the state. It is starting to become a state where the incredibly wealthy are taking up the land and the resources, thus making it harder to work on.

Eventually you will begin to see a lot of the effects of Californians moving to these areas in droves and you will begin to see things become different.

Although we talk about the bad things, this can actually be a very good thing for an entrepreneur in the area who wishes to take his trade or craft to the next level and be able to work with Californians. If you’re an electrician, this is great for business! If you’re an auto technician, more cars with more miles on them!

Manufacturing coming to your area may also expand as you will begin to see more people come to your area and how exactly to cater to them. I myself will never leave California except for college but I have seen a lot of the world myself and it’s quite unique in a way.

If you play with stocks this might be perfect as well as you will be able to work in more markets. A new share market is starting to expand as well, the first app I use, Landa, focuses entirely on buying shares of houses and being able to see the dividends come in. I love the app actually and have been buying a lot more shares in Georgia. Georgia has an increase meanwhile shares for houses in Alabama don’t seem to be going up at all. New York is very matured now but will see more growth later on.

So there is a lot of opportunity here and over time you will see it grow. It becomes more apparent as things change and you will see more waves from other areas come in.