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Leisher wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 12:43 pm I see stocks have recovered a bit.

That didn't last long.

Leisher wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 1:55 pm

Leisher wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 12:43 pm I see stocks have recovered a bit.

That didn't last long.

lol.

It's gonna be volatile. Specially if something happens in the Middle East.

I see everyone saying the fed needs to slash interest rates.

You agree?

Leisher wrote: ↑Mon Aug 05, 2024 3:04 pm I see everyone saying the fed needs to slash interest rates.

You agree?

hard to say. 2 weeks ago they were saying how great everything is.

I don't think a cut would be a bad thing. It's already coming next month anyway

The Republicans in my twitter feed sure turned Socialist yesterday.

My kid is in the market and he was also making comments and observations yesterday that I didn't understand.

He also said he wants to go to Omaha and talk to Warren Buffet for a minute. I just nodded like I understood why.

Lol. He could settle for me in the meantime?

My advice was to ride out the Intel drop, don't sell now and take the loss. It will probably come back when they make their next quarter earnings. Or, this is the beginning of the end and they're closing down. Either/or. Good talk, son!

I also said there's probably always going to be money to be made in weapons, and health care.

INTC? OOooof. There's a company I don't like. Especially with the fab issues they've had, and now the 13th + 14th gen CPU issues, ick.

At least your kid isn't that guy.

My kid thinks he should buy more, now.

GORDON wrote: ↑Wed Aug 07, 2024 11:31 am My kid thinks he should buy more, now.

I think your kid should read these books: The Millionaire Next Door, The Richest Man in Babylon, A Random Walk Down Wall Street, and The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing.

He's falling into a classic buy loser trap, imho:
https://www.quora.com/Why-do-most-peopl ... ock-market

Maybe he's right, maybe the value play is there. Honestly, I'm mostly and index investor (VOO, VTI).

Intel sucks right now. All of their newer chips have problems, they've lost market share, nothing big coming down the pipeline, and so on. The only bright spot is that AMD, their biggest competitor, is also having issues with new launches.

Last week's recession canceled.

Initial claims for unemployment insurance totaled less than expected last week, countering other signs that the labor market is weakening.

Article called "The age of freeloading is over".

Summary: Costco and Disney+ are among more companies joining Netflix in cracking down on consumers to ensure passwords, memberships, etc. aren't being shared.

I'd like the streamers to offer "junior" memberships for college kids. The government wants them on our insurance until they're 26, so let's extend that. We all know we're paying for them anyway. Kid at college? That's an additional $5/month. Wouldn't be hard to track either. I was getting all sorts of benefits while in college recently that were on a timer. To continue the timer I only had to prove I was still in school, and there was a middle man service that took care of that.

Private equity questions:

I am referring to companies like Blackstone. Note their website is as sterile and devoid of any real substance as it gets. There's no listing of their companies, success stories, etc. Just generic horseshit, ESG garbage, and charity work.

Catt, correct me if I'm wrong here, but the business model for private equity is: We're rich, but greedy AF. Thus, we buy companies and reduce their budget as much as possible. This includes firing everyone we can, buying cheap raw materials, reducing quantity and quality given to consumers, and raising prices. Then they try to sell the company for additional profit.

1 -
Have private equity firms ever successfully turned around a franchise? And let me qualify that question...

I don't mean, "squeezed out every last penny they could to recoup their investment and make a profit before ditching the carcass."

I mean, "This franchise was on death's doorstep, but now is thriving thanks to the private equity firm that bought them."

2 -
What is the success rate of companies that are purchased by private equity firms?

Actually, let me answer that one: They are 10x more likely to go bankrupt. Private equity companies are behind 65% of billion dollar bankruptcies.

3 -
Are private equity firms a horrible thing in the business world? This NYT opinion piece thinks so.

I'm not saying private equity companies are "literally Hitler", but they suck and when people discuss eating the rich, this is who they should start with.

I read a tweet earlier today that said: Harvard Business School grads don't want to work for boring manufacturing companies. And boring manufacturing companies don't want to hire HBS grads. So private equity exists to make boring mfg companies attractive to HBS grads, and make it so that boring mfg companies will accept HBS grads.

At any rate... Yes, plenty of private equity is successful. Maybe you've heard of Dunkin' Donuts? Man, that places sucks. But, PE helped it triple its market cap from 2006 to 2011. The idea is professional management can do better than current management. Honestly, might be true of a company that you are VERY familiar with?

The problem with distressed companies that PE often gets headlines for investing in (Toys R Us, etc), is that they are shitty companies that are going to die anyway. So yeah, there's probably more bankruptcies via PE because of the types of firms that PE invests in (selection bias).

I don't really love PE, and I think it has a bad rep for a good reason. PE works best when its success is tied to the success of the firm in which it's investing. Rather than some of the LBOs (leveraged buyouts) you hear about where PE basically rapes a firm and saddles them with ridiculous amounts of debt.

This overlooks a lot of PE's potential in funding new firms, investing in growth, and doing a lot of good in capital markets. (Full disclosure, I work for a hedge fund that is funded by a very famous PE firm. I was surprised to see just how many companies the PE firm is invested in, and it's a lot of winners. Rich get richer, and the capabilities and connections the PE firm has opens A LOT of doors for the companies in which they invest. We got a 5% discount on our AWS bill just for being associated with them, is a simple example, despite being way too small of a company to "earn" such a discount. Legal expertise, CISO expertise, and a lot more, etc. also came with it.)

Leisher wrote: ↑Tue Sep 10, 2024 5:15 pm I'm not saying private equity companies are "literally Hitler", but they suck and when people discuss eating the rich, this is who they should start with.

Some PE companies more than others, yes.

Monthly inflation report in line with expectations.

Consumer prices rose 0.2% and in line with expectations for August, but the monthly core inflation figure came in slightly higher than expected. Excluding food and energy prices, CPI rose 0.3% versus a Dow Jones estimate of 0.2%. Year over year, the figure rose 3.2% and in line with estimates.

The report comes ahead of the Fed’s Sept 17-18 meeting, with traders widely expecting a rate cut. The only remaining question appears to be by how much the U.S. central bank will reduce rates.

Rate cut next week, people expect 25 points, outside shot at 50.

I was surprised when I had a cart 75% full of groceries yesterday, for $130, at Walmart. I almost wanted to go through my receipt to see if they missed anything, but then I would feel compelled to correct it if I did see that.

That's like 20-years-ago prices.

But I've also been pondering how much inflation we've had, cumulatively, since COVID started. We keep hearing these very reasonable and calming "3-5%" numbers, per month, but no one talks about how much it went up during say, a Presidential term during an election cycle.

Are prices up 33%, say, during Biden, for example? I don't know. But it isn't a nice, acceptable 3% COLA that social security peeps will be told is their raise this year.