Investing

[Deleterious]

I can't tell if he is serious or just looking for an excuse to fire some people.

https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/30/23431931/twitter-paid-verification-elon-musk-blue-monthly-subscription

[Deleterious]

Well done graphic.

AWS bringing in the profits.

[Deleterious]

 

[Deleterious]

They released the new I-Bond rates today.

6.89% and 0.40% fixed rate.

[chasfh]

Glad I got my nine-sixes when I did.

[chasfh]

You will call me crazy, but I took a small chunk of savings and dipped it into a five-year CD paying 4.01%, which is that number I long felt would be the tipping point I'd need to go into them again. Also, the way I figure it, with with deflationary forces looming on the horizon, it's not a super risky move, and if by some chance CD rates shoot up to 6% or 8% or 10% or something like that, I can put another chunk of savings into that. I mean, where else am I gonna keep it? The bank paying 2-and-change?

[Deleterious]

I almost think the fixed rate is worth losing a couple of percentage points. I know I will be buying my dad another $10k worth at the first of the year.

[Screwball]

FWIW, you can create a Treasury Direct account (United States Treasury) and fund it different ways. I buy bonds thru my bank account and my broker, but pull the trigger myself.

Last week I was buying some bonds and the site timed out on several occasions. I spent 15-20 minutes doing what would normally take less than 5. I wasn't sure if it was me, or something else. Later in the day I read other people had the same problem. Sounded like the site was overwhelmed.

Who wouldn't like a low risk "higher" yield opportunity?  The swine fucking banks are giving us .01 on savings. I will also admit, some of us old pukes are happy to see that "saving" once again pays a bit of a premium.  At the end of the day, what you do still depends on timing. And your tolerance for risk/reward.

[Deleterious]

Yep.  They said people buying I-Bonds on the last few days of the higher rate were not guaranteed to get them in time.  S a ton of people must have been trying to buy.  Makes sense.

[oblong]

I was reading up on some bonds last night and found one that requires you to link to your fitness tracker and will give you the better rate if you average 12,500 steps a day.

 

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, oblong said:

I was reading up on some bonds last night and found one that requires you to link to your fitness tracker and will give you the better rate if you average 12,500 steps a day.

 

Ummm … 😅?

[Screwball]

Update on Treasury Direct.  I bought some 1 month T-bills today with no issues. This is hooked to my bank account, which pays .01 - thank you very fucking much.  I hate banks.

I also got a deposit for the first one I bough a month ago.  Random numbers, let's say 10 grand, makes you 25 bucks in a month.  X4, spaced weekly, give you 100 a month for pushing a button. You can trip a toggle when buying, to roll it over, but I prefer to push the button.

And to be clear, this is not investment advise.  Just what works for me at the current time.

[gehringer_2]

I may be slow to the party here - maybe someone already reported this but:

Just saw a Biden tweet that gas prices were back to March levels. My wife is retired and I communte less than 10 miles per day so I don't have to buy much gasoline anymore but my impression, without paying much attention, was that local gas prices were sticking awfully high. Well, I knew BPs big refinery South of Chicago had had a major fire and outage through Sept, but hadn't taken the time to look any further. Today I finally took a look and it turns out our friends at BP have blown up their refinery in Toledo and put another 160,000 bpd out of service indefinitely. So between that I believe Whiting is still not back to full capacity and Toledo being completely down, we are screwed locally. 

When I was working refineries, BP was without question the worst operator in the industry. Disaster after disaster at BP facilities and nothing ever changed. At least Exxon cleaned up their act in big ways after the Vladez. BP appears to learn nothing.

Edited November 3, 2022 by gehringer_2

[oblong]

My place shot up 50 cents overnight.  Glad I got gas last night. Saved me $8.  A cursory check around the area showed an uptick by 20 or 30 cents as I drove around for errands.  

[Screwball]

The refinery thing was in Oregon, Ohio.  A BP facility. Ugly.  That was in September.

Cornhole gas went from $3.49 a few days ago to $3.89 today.

Watch diesel. The canary in the coal mine.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Screwball

[Screwball]

1 hour ago, gehringer_2 said:

<snip>

When I was working refineries, BP was without question the worst operator in the industry. Disaster after disaster at BP facilities and nothing ever changed. At least Exxon cleaned up their act in big ways after the Vladez. BP appears to learn nothing.

Until the next time they fuck something up while making record profits.

[gehringer_2]

16 minutes ago, Screwball said:

The refinery thing was in Oregon, Ohio.  A BP facility. Ugly.  That was in September.

Cornhole gas went from $3.49 a few days ago to $3.89 today.

Watch diesel. The canary in the coal mine.

I worked a project in that facility for a number of weeks. Wasn't a day there I wished I wasn't.

[Tiger337]

On 11/1/2022 at 5:06 PM, chasfh said:

You will call me crazy, but I took a small chunk of savings and dipped it into a five-year CD paying 4.01%, which is that number I long felt would be the tipping point I'd need to go into them again. Also, the way I figure it, with with deflationary forces looming on the horizon, it's not a super risky move, and if by some chance CD rates shoot up to 6% or 8% or 10% or something like that, I can put another chunk of savings into that. I mean, where else am I gonna keep it? The bank paying 2-and-change?

I put a substantial percentage of savings into short-term treasuries and CDs a little while ago.  They were all between 3.5 and 4%.  After they expire, I will probably go long-term with some of it.  The first batch expires at the end of December.   

[chasfh]

6 minutes ago, Tiger337 said:

I put a substantial percentage of savings into short-term treasuries and CDs a little while ago.  They were all between 3.5 and 4%.  After they expire, I will probably go long-term with some of it.  The first batch expires at the end of December.   

Can you share where you can get a short-term CD at 4%? Because the best I could find, at least a couple weeks ago, was Sallie Mae (4.05% at 5 years) and Synchrony (4.01% at 3+ years).

EDIT: Then I looked at the Synchrony site after this post and see they have a 4.21% at 15 months as of today.

Edited November 3, 2022 by chasfh

[Deleterious]

1 year T-Bill is 4.8% today.

[Tiger337]

2 hours ago, chasfh said:

Can you share where you can get a short-term CD at 4%? Because the best I could find, at least a couple weeks ago, was Sallie Mae (4.05% at 5 years) and Synchrony (4.01% at 3+ years).

EDIT: Then I looked at the Synchrony site after this post and see they have a 4.21% at 15 months as of today.

I got mine through TIAA.    Right now, there is as 5 year CD at 5% at Capital One, McLean, VA.

They have a 6 mo CD at 4.3% at Ally Bank, in Midvale, UT

At the end of December, I'll be investing in another CD or treasury.

Edited November 3, 2022 by Tiger337

[Screwball]

18 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I worked a project in that facility for a number of weeks. Wasn't a day there I wished I wasn't.

Refineries are nasty dirty awful places.  Not far from there, close to Tony Packos is the shipyards.  The big boats come from the lake up the river, dock in one of the "docks" for lack of a better word.  They close some doors, pump the water out (fish, bunches of fish), then weld new sides and bottoms to the ship. Incredible operation.

They have huge bundles of railroad ties to plane the bottom of the ship once the water goes out. They have cranes on both sides of the dock and lower 10 X 40 plates of 1 inch thick steel down in this huge hole.  Once lowered, the workers use block and tackle to put them in place. 24/7/365.  I knew a guy who worked there.  He got me in a gave me a tour.  In the winter they used oxy/acetylene torches to heat a small place inside the boat to keep warm.  It looks like 1850. But it needs to happen, or they don't run. At the other end of town is what used to be The Andersons.  Not sure what they are now, but was a huge port for a place like Toledo.

[gehringer_2]

58 minutes ago, Screwball said:

At the other end of town is what used to be The Andersons.

Loved Andersons. By the time I stopped working in Toledo a lot of retail East of the river along Woodville Rd had collapsed

[Screwball]

It has collapsed everywhere.  You should get out more.

I drove from the Cornhole area (about an hour on a good day) to Bennett Rd. in Toledo starting in 1987.  Had to deal with the 280 bridge - what fun - Mad Max stuff.

I worked at a Spicer transmission plant on Bennett Rd. At one time, 5000 people worked there, but even by 1987, when I started, they had been moving the jobs elsewhere (union jobs). Arkansas and Mexico to start.

NAFTA was passed in 94/95ish, and what was left of our facility disappeared within a few years.  It is now a warehouse, but a big one.  Looks mostly empty last time I went by.  It was once a mini-city.

Clarence Spicer patented the automotive u-joint in 1903; one of the greatest inventions of our time, IMO. Spicer, later became a division of Dana Corp, which got the name from a politician named as such (and funding).

At one time they were a fortune 100 company. Not sure where they rank now. When I was there, we were the largest OEM automotive supplier in the world, and the industry leader in gear making, but they made all kinds of other stuff as well.

Starting back then, and until I retired (not from there - they were gone), I watched the transition from making shit here (US) to sending every fucking thing possible to some third world shithole because of slave labor and environmental benefits for one thing - the bottom line.

I was a part of that, and I'm not proud of it.  I had to eat, and feed 5 other people.

It doesn't matter if it is gears, u-joints, toasters, tires, tables, clothes, or even our food. The "bottom line" is all that matters in today's world.  Wall Street's next quarterly report.

Until it don't.

Shit's getting real around the world.

Start with supply chains... I spent countless hours in corporate obedience training classes to figure out how to squeeze another 2 seconds from a process that produces one of our daily pleasures. Some corporate buzzwords called it "process mapping."

Some worker is expected to perform a task every 15 seconds as the product goes down the assembly line.  15 seconds isn't good enough, do it in 13.  Eliminate 3 screws, that's a process we don't need. One worker (one screw) a shift, 3 shifts, 3 people can be eliminated (or moved - ha ha).

Training class; 25 people in a room, with 3 instructors, spent 4 hours playing "Mousetrap" (the game) for 4 hours - then another 4 in the afternoon analyzing it. Deming would be proud.  All about eliminating cost - and the easiest way to do so is jobs.

Your job becomes eliminating jobs, which might be people in your own family, your neighbor, a friend, or a friends friend.

We are living in a house of cards, both materially, and financially. Within the next year or two, millions of Americans will experience a life changing event they will have no clue how to deal with.

It won't be pretty.  Plan accordingly.

How's that for your Debbie Downer post of the night?  LOL!

[oblong]

11 hours ago, Screwball said:

It has collapsed everywhere.  You should get out more.

I drove from the Cornhole area (about an hour on a good day) to Bennett Rd. in Toledo starting in 1987.  Had to deal with the 280 bridge - what fun - Mad Max stuff.

I worked at a Spicer transmission plant on Bennett Rd. At one time, 5000 people worked there, but even by 1987, when I started, they had been moving the jobs elsewhere (union jobs). Arkansas and Mexico to start.

NAFTA was passed in 94/95ish, and what was left of our facility disappeared within a few years.  It is now a warehouse, but a big one.  Looks mostly empty last time I went by.  It was once a mini-city.

Clarence Spicer patented the automotive u-joint in 1903; one of the greatest inventions of our time, IMO. Spicer, later became a division of Dana Corp, which got the name from a politician named as such (and funding).

At one time they were a fortune 100 company. Not sure where they rank now. When I was there, we were the largest OEM automotive supplier in the world, and the industry leader in gear making, but they made all kinds of other stuff as well.

Starting back then, and until I retired (not from there - they were gone), I watched the transition from making shit here (US) to sending every fucking thing possible to some third world shithole because of slave labor and environmental benefits for one thing - the bottom line.

I was a part of that, and I'm not proud of it.  I had to eat, and feed 5 other people.

It doesn't matter if it is gears, u-joints, toasters, tires, tables, clothes, or even our food. The "bottom line" is all that matters in today's world.  Wall Street's next quarterly report.

Until it don't.

Shit's getting real around the world.

Start with supply chains... I spent countless hours in corporate obedience training classes to figure out how to squeeze another 2 seconds from a process that produces one of our daily pleasures. Some corporate buzzwords called it "process mapping."

Some worker is expected to perform a task every 15 seconds as the product goes down the assembly line.  15 seconds isn't good enough, do it in 13.  Eliminate 3 screws, that's a process we don't need. One worker (one screw) a shift, 3 shifts, 3 people can be eliminated (or moved - ha ha).

Training class; 25 people in a room, with 3 instructors, spent 4 hours playing "Mousetrap" (the game) for 4 hours - then another 4 in the afternoon analyzing it. Deming would be proud.  All about eliminating cost - and the easiest way to do so is jobs.

Your job becomes eliminating jobs, which might be people in your own family, your neighbor, a friend, or a friends friend.

We are living in a house of cards, both materially, and financially. Within the next year or two, millions of Americans will experience a life changing event they will have no clue how to deal with.

It won't be pretty.  Plan accordingly.

How's that for your Debbie Downer post of the night?  LOL!

But isn't the reason for these decisions you cite the whole point of this thread?  Everyone wants a better investment. More money, a better return..... that's how you get it.  By squeezing every last 1/4 point you can out of the stock or bond, whatever it takes.