Investing

[Deleterious]

 

[chasfh]

I put a few more bucks in IONQ after scoring a four-bagger on it in the past year. We'll see how it goes from here ...

[Deleterious]

Nvidia announced their new graphic cards today.  Top of the line RTX 5090 has a MSRP of $1,999.

The current 4090 goes for about that price right now, if you can find any.  A 3090 can go for $1,500.  That new 5090 might hit the shelves close to $3K.  

Guessing that is the main reason Nvidia lost over 6% today.  Although, I think most of those higher end GPU's are meant more for AI people than video game players.  

[Deleterious]

17 hours ago, chasfh said:

I put a few more bucks in IONQ after scoring a four-bagger on it in the past year. We'll see how it goes from here ...

Are you going to double down?

[Deleterious]

Forgot the screen shot.  Quantum stocks are getting hammered.

Huang (Nvidia CEO) said they were decades away from any practical use so now everyone is dumping them.  

[chasfh]

20 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

Are you going to double down?

Yes, I doubled my original investment, not the value of what I have now.

[chasfh]

16 minutes ago, Deleterious said:

Forgot the screen shot.  Quantum stocks are getting hammered.

Huang (Nvidia CEO) said they were decades away from any practical use so now everyone is dumping them.  

And of course, this happens the moment I threw in a couple extra bucks. Like, literally, the moment: I made the purchase at 3:59PM ET yesterday.

That said, my gain has been reduced from +275% at close yesterday to +38% now.

Edited January 8 by chasfh

[1776]

10 year treasury chasing 4.8 on very strong jobs report. 

[1776]

After nearly 30 years after its publication date, I finally read the book, The Millionaire Next Door. 
Out of curiosity I asked for it as a gift suggestion and received it Christmas. I’d guess I’m probably the last one here to read it. 
Enjoyed the book. Obviously some things have changed since its publication but an awful lot of things have remained the same. 
Over the years this has been one of the most financial related books mentioned through all my related readings. 

[Screwball]

10 hours ago, 1776 said:

10 year treasury chasing 4.8 on very strong jobs report. 

Not really a strong jobs report, but the action on the 10 year was interesting.

At exactly 8:30 when the report hit the tape the 10 year took a spike. Nothing looks funny. JPowell should be proud.

 

[Screwball]

A thread on the insurance angle to the CA fires and insurance companies.

 

[oblong]

I'm fully expecting to have to do my shopping around next year.  Glad my **** renewed already for 2025.

My previous insurer tried to pass off a 50% premium increase on my house from 2023-2024.  

Tip:  If you have any older relatives help them out with their car and home insurance in terms of pricing around.  My mother in law had AAA her whole life.  She just assumed she was getting "the best" deal because she gets it through her Catholic Credit Union.  We saved her $75 a month this year by making a few phone calls on her behalf.  She's not a dummy.  But the way things work now is intimidating with all the apps and logins etc.  She gets flustered.

 

[gehringer_2]

Wall Street pretty excited this morning with a CPI report that the Dec "Core" CPI increase fell to 0.2% , from 0.3% where it had been stuck since July. OTOH, overall CPI was up from 0.3% to 0.4% on the month.

[gehringer_2]

On 1/13/2025 at 1:58 PM, Screwball said:

A thread on the insurance angle to the CA fires and insurance companies.

 

Rates are going to go up everywhere but FLA and CA are going to get hammered. So we'll probably see more people dropping their coverages and the next round of catastrophes there will be more uninsured people wiped out. Although this guy in the thread above argues the net effect will go in the opposite direction with more people ponying up for insurance before the 'next round'. I suppose that's possible too.

Quote

Insurance stocks are not set to collapse. They might experience short term volatility, but in the long run insurance stocks go up because 1) They can charge higher premiums after natural disasters, and 2) Increased awareness of insurance expands the customer base dramatically

The well-capitalized insurers simply adapt to the new risks and the market charges higher premiums across the board

 

Edited January 15 by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

don't look for egg prices to come down anytime soon - from Jan 10 WaPo:

(note: 40 million hens would lay something in the order of 10 billion eggs in a year.....)

Quote

Experts say it’s a classic case of supply and demand. According to the USDA, nearly 40 million commercial egg-laying hens across the country were lost last year to the H5N1 strain of the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) and fires. The losses were especially high in December, the agency noted, which coincided with the usual peak holiday demand for eggs, leading to “record-high wholesale and retail prices.”

And on the demand side, it’s not just the rise in holiday sales: The volume of eggs sold at retail has been up year over year for 21 consecutive months, according to the American Egg Board, which attributes Americans’ appetite to a number of factors, including the emphasis many people are placing on protein in their diets.

 

 

“These two forces combined — tight supply and high demand — are directly causing the spike in wholesale prices we’ve seen recently,” Egg Board CEO Emily Metz said in an emailed statement to The Washington Post.

Egg prices are particularly sensitive, too, more so than those of many other grocery items. Dan Sumner, an agricultural economist at the University of California at Davis, says eggs are considered “inelastic” — that is, shoppers have a hard time finding a substitute for them. “So [if there is] a small change in the quantity of eggs available, the price goes up a lot,” he said.

 

Edited January 15 by gehringer_2

[Deleterious]

 

[Deleterious]

TSM up over 5% on really good 4th quarter earnings.  

[Tigeraholic1]

2 hours ago, Deleterious said:

 

Brutal

[gehringer_2]

26 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Brutal

could get worse if the PCE comes in at 2.8% (or more) again at the end of the month.

[Tigeraholic1]

12 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

could get worse if the PCE comes in at 2.8% (or more) again at the end of the month.

It won't be great and housing market will continue to be soft. Rent will continue to rise.

[gehringer_2]

16 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

It won't be great and housing market will continue to be soft. Rent will continue to rise.

I understand all the reasons the FED always wants to move slowly and deliberately, but I think now is a time where 'sending a message' with a 25 point *increase* would have a lot more psychological effect on long terms rates than any actual slowing effect 25 pts would have on short term economy. If markets lose confidence that inflation is coming back down the rest of the way, it will make it much harder to actually make it come down. But of course the individual Fed governors  also know that to bump rates would be to incur major wrath from 1600 Pennsylvania.

Edited Thursday at 08:42 PM by gehringer_2

[Screwball]

4 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I understand all the reasons the FED always wants to move slowly and deliberately, but I think now is a time where 'sending a message' with a 25 point *increase* would have a lot more psychological effect on long terms rates than any actual slowing effect 25 pts would have on short term economy. If markets lose confidence that inflation is coming back down the rest of the way, it will make it much harder to actually make it come down. But of course the individual Fed governors  also know that to bump rates would be to incur major wrath from 1600 Pennsylvania.

Are you saying the Fed should raise rates?

[gehringer_2]

14 minutes ago, Screwball said:

Are you saying the Fed should raise rates?

if long term rates are increasing in the market, it means the bond buyers think inflation is not being controlled on the Fed's current path. So make a showing you are willing to change the path, maybe you change the psych. And 25 basis point has little enough effect on the real economy that the psych effect may be worth it. In the long run you don't get longer term rates back down until you get the expectation of inflation down. If pushing short term rates up gets people to believe the Fed is going to maintain a hard line on inflation (and assuming they actually take one!), then all rates can eventually come back down - in theory....

If I could sit in a Fed meeting maybe I hear a hundred reasons it's the wrong answer, but sitting here blowing smoke, it seems like as good an idea as any.

Immaterial though - as in the real world I think there is zero chance they bump rates up. To many pressures not to.

Edited Friday at 01:49 AM by gehringer_2

[Screwball]

18 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

if long term rates are increasing in the market, it means the bond buyers think inflation is not being controlled on the Fed's current path. So make a showing you are willing to change the path, maybe you change the psych. And 25 basis point has little enough effect on the real economy that the psych effect may be worth it. In the long run you don't get longer term rates back down until you get the expectation of inflation down. If pushing short term rates up gets people to believe the Fed is going to maintain a hard line on inflation (and assuming they actually take one!), then all rates can eventually come back down - in theory....

If I could sit in a Fed meeting maybe I hear a hundred reasons it's the wrong answer, but sitting here blowing smoke, it seems like as good an idea as any.

Immaterial though - as in the real world I think there is zero chance they bump rates up. To many pressures not to.

I won't link it but I posted a chart up thread from a few months ago of the 10yr. The Fed went 50bps cuts, then two 25s. A week ago the rate was almost the same as it was before they cut. How'd that work out JPowell?

The rate is only one metric. We still have a market, and things don't always work like the monetary geniuses at the Fed think.

I do love the yield on the short term rates though. Safe is good.

 

[1776]

I’m a Vanguard guy but this fine is overdue. This was a total cluster for many clients. It was negligence in a big way.

——————————————————

Asset management giant Vanguard has been fined more than $100 million to settle charges related to disclosures around target date investment funds, the Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday.

The violations stem from a 2020 change where Vanguard lowered the minimum investment requirement for its institutional target date funds. The SEC order found that the change spurred redemptions as Vanguard customers moved from other target date funds into the institutional versions, creating taxable distributions for some of the remaining shareholders. The SEC said Vanguard failed to properly disclose the potential impact of the investment threshold changes on distributions.