Investing General Discussion

Blazin

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Just like our own contest, 12 month outlooks are very strongly driven by current mood. If we were even in a mild 5-7% pullback this month you would see a notable change in those numbers.

Wall street outlooks are 8-12% every year, all the time, forever and ever, unless we are in a correction when they are created.

Earnings are doing well and they are the real question, based on forward looking estimates the market is now cheaper than it was at this time last year. There is always something to worry about, the move in silver, copper and gold are certainly concerning.

I think treasury will have to occasionally pretend it cares about shoring up the dollar, when it does so we will be weak for a bit until we go back to not giving a shit about it. It's just an attempt at controlling the decline. But are they controlling it? They watch the dollar index which measures the dollar against other major currencies, how about the dollar against physical commodities?

This is the perfect storm bitcoin was meant to shine, not only not participating it's in a down trend.

So big questions for me for 2026 is OIL and BTC do they reverse and play catch up? The consumer continues to do well, I should go back in the last 18 months and find all the linked posts about how troubled the consumer is, even better the calls for a housing crash while home owners are at record levels of untapped equity.

There is a 1996 door in front of us, do we step through it? I'm going to continue to repeat, I hope we don't. It will be an epic ride for sure but given our average age here let's hope it's a ride we delay a little longer for own sakes.
 
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Blazin

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What's the 1996 door? A massive run up for 4 years?
The end to a macro secular cycle , historically after a significant steepening in asset prices .

over the years I’ve postulated this would occur in early to mid 2030s based on demographics. Maybe it happens some years earlier. 20-30% annual returns.

it’s the stage of a bull market that all will be given back and market could go a decade or more without a new high when it’s over
 
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Flobee

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The end to a macro secular cycle , historically after a significant steepening in asset prices .

over the years I’ve postulated this would occur in early to mid 2030s based on demographics. Maybe it happens some years earlier. 20-30% annual returns.

it’s the stage of a bull market that all will be given back and market could go a decade or more without a new high when it’s over
1996 lined up with a major jump in technological efficiency as well (Internet and computing more generally) and technology is an incredibly deflationary force in the sense that it reduces the cost of production. Its not really unreasonable to assume we see, and are already seeing, something similar with AI/Robotics. These technologies are going to be incredibly deflationary.

Just another factor that kind of agrees with what you're saying.
 
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Tmac

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Given that AI is the catalyst, is the play to just ride ETF’s into the sun like Icarus or make AI your ride or die as it continues to bubble?
 

Blazin

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As it matures it will become harder to define what is an "AI" trade. New technologies work their way into the economy because they are useful and produce results all companies will be the "AI trade" or they will cease to exist.

The bubble often forms because early it's difficult to foresee the winners and the losers as adoption increases. Capital is allocated quickly, some of it very poorly. The subsequent corrective period will hurt those who fail to harness the new tech efficiently and the new leaders will emerge. Bear markets are a period of time to punish miss allocation of capital. Our first attempts to use/benefit from a new tech are often misguided but the free markets will hone and chisel away at the best results.

We will likely look back at this period now and some of it will just seem silly in the context of where we end up.

We can all see the big numbers talked about every day in relation to current and coming capital projects, some of them are going to be so stupid in hindsight, the AOL Time Warner deal for a new generation.
 
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Rangoth

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Related, somewhat depending on your view these days, about BTC being in a downtrend is that MSTR is once again marching to a new 52-W low!!! I guess one could claim it somewhat matches the downward angle of BTC but it seems to be getting disconnected. The real test(in my eyes) is if it hovers around 1mNAV. Then buying MSTR is sort of like buying 1 BTC.

If it drops below that and stays there I am not even sure what that means other than people have lost all faith in MSTR. I wonder if their yield holdings will see a similar drop. If they keep paying the 10% it should keep confidence in those fairly balanced. I know Saylor and this ticker drive a lot of mixed opinions but I am incredibly curious as to what happens.

My puts on it have been very profitable the last 1-2 months, but it's hitting levels where I am not sure how much lower it can do so I'm back in "watch and see" mode with it. I feel like if BTC recovers this could be one that explodes back up from 150 -> 300 again....maybe and I'd want to catch that upside. I'll share if I see the 60m(minute) or daily trend start to change with confidence.
 

Tirant

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Its amazing how ferociously SPY maximalist defend it as a strategy. Especially when you consider how bad its performed compared with the barbarous relic over the last 25 years.

Not that its a ridiculous strategy, but during some environments you might want to adjust holdings one way or the other. The rigidity of "all this asset, all the time" just seems ridiculous.

edit: added the time period I was comparing gold vs spy.
 

Gravel

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Its amazing how ferociously SPY maximalist defend it as a strategy. Especially when you consider how bad its performed compared with the barbarous relic over the last 25 years.

Not that its a ridiculous strategy, but during some environments you might want to adjust holdings one way or the other. The rigidity of "all this asset, all the time" just seems ridiculous.

edit: added the time period I was comparing gold vs spy.
It's a bet on the US economy. If you assume the US economy keeps chugging on, you invest in the public companies that encompass it. Not only that, but it refreshes itself dumping the losers and adding the new winners.

Do I think the US economy is impervious? Obviously not, see my posts in the general forums. But what other option is there? Bet on Europe? Ha. Asia? Japan is a clusterfuck and I trust China even less than the US. Not only that, but you look at the last two big crashes and the rest of the world not only went with us, performed significantly worse.

I'm not about to invest my entire net worth in metals or crypto, so what's left? Bonds?
 
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Blazin

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Both things are true, is the S&P one of the best investment on earth? Yes
Can it go a decade and go no where? Yes

I still struggle with diversification into non productive assets for long lengths in time. To me those are alternatives to cash and bonds not an alternative to equities.

Our companies are becoming less physical which is concerning to the dynamic of owning actual productive things versus an idea/intangible. I think this is why RE is still an important part of the equation. So is a S&P/RE/Bond/Cash portfolio better than S&P/RE/Commodity/Crypto portfolio? There are is tons of great arguments and discussions to be had about that. What percentages, which make up etc.

There is always going to be people out there saying to YOLO into one of them to the exclusion of the others, I think that is just our tendency to want to compartmentalize our interest and views.
 
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Tirant

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I think I agree with Flobee. I just really like the viewpoint of "gold is money, everything else is credit". You start looking through that lens and you'll see that buying stocks and the "US economy" actually lost money over the last 25 years. Gold price appreciation is probably a better indicator of true inflation than CPI, which would indicate that all the gains in the stock market since 2000 are less than the inflation related to government deficits. Value destruction on a long enough time line.

Blazin do you own any gold?
 
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Gravel

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I think I agree with Flobee. I just really like the viewpoint of "gold is money, everything else is credit". You start looking through that lens and you'll see that buying stocks and the "US economy" actually lost money over the last 25 years. Gold price appreciation is probably a better indicator of true inflation than CPI, which would indicate that all the gains in the stock market since 2000 are less than the inflation related to government deficits. Value destruction on a long enough time line.

Blazin do you own any gold?
This is recency bias. Look at a historical chart of gold prices and tell me how you would've felt investing into gold in the 80s without its price moving for two decades.
 
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Rangoth

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Its amazing how ferociously SPY maximalist defend it as a strategy. Especially when you consider how bad its performed compared with the barbarous relic over the last 25 years.

Not that its a ridiculous strategy, but during some environments you might want to adjust holdings one way or the other. The rigidity of "all this asset, all the time" just seems ridiculous.

edit: added the time period I was comparing gold vs spy.
I don't view it so much as a strategy as a way for people who don't have time/knowledge/interest to invest "safely". As someone above said, it basically a bet on the US/US Companies. In general it is a safer play and very little chance of going to zero cause you to post on WallStreetBets that you lost it all on INTEL.

Bought another 1000 shares of IBIT , let's go you POS , short leash unless we can get out of the box.

This one is interesting to me the same way I am watching BTC. I think BTC has found a relative bottom and like I've said in other posts, it is clearly not "going away" in the macro sense so where the hell does it fit with society? Will we start paying with it, is it new gold or gold alternative, is our fake paper money backed by it? Can I eventually take loans on it or participate in some type of DeFi?

If this were a normal company I would say the chart doesn't yet inspire confidence. 100DMA about to cross 200DMA, 50 and 30 still angled downward, and everything else screams "meh" at best. To your point though this could be a trough of a low and a great time to buy in while it settles and reverses. Also the BTC factor of it not being a typical company throws another wrench in the mix.

1766515834683.png


Could BTC(IBIT) be a leading market indicator now? Looking at the 5Y SPY below we may have the largest gap between 100/200DMA average in the last 5-10 years if you zoom out more. What does that mean? /shrug, no idea. It *could* signal the gap needs to close either by stagnation in the SPY or a downward market.

I don't claim to be an expert at macro economic trends nor an expert in charts, but when I "swing"(1-2 months max) trade options a large gap in DMA usually tells me things may flatline or reverse to reduce the volatility.

1766516123845.png
 

Tirant

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This is recency bias. Look at a historical chart of gold prices and tell me how you would've felt investing into gold in the 80s without its price moving for two decades.


I mostly agree, that why I was specific on looking at 25 years, its not crazy recency but also not a lifetime. That's what I was trying to say in my earlier post about "during some environments you might want to adjust holdings one way or the other". Some people really hate gold which puzzles me, and I try not to be too much of a gold bug but the idea of using it as the "money" denominator is highly useful IMO because I dont trust government published inflation.

The question we gotta ask is "looking forward, are we in a 1980s scenario where gold is high, but interest rates are going to skyrocket so buy stocks" or are we in January of 2000 where stocks are high and gold is cheap. Flobees chart shows that the US Economy (and stocks) were the right bet to place in 1980, and the wrong bet to place in 2000 which is why I like it. What's the right bet today? I don't know but I also know I'm not going 100% into gold or 100% into SPY.

I really like conversations like this because it made me go look up the PE on the S&P500 in January of 1980 and holy shit it was 7.39.
 

Gravel

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I'm traveling, but there was a portfolio I saw a long time ago that's probably right up your alley. I want to say it was called golden butterfly, but I don't have my bookmarks to confirm.
 

Seananigans

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This is recency bias. Look at a historical chart of gold prices and tell me how you would've felt investing into gold in the 80s without its price moving for two decades.

Prices aren’t supposed to go up. Your entire frame of reference is warped, as is everyone’s.
 

Blazin

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I think I agree with Flobee. I just really like the viewpoint of "gold is money, everything else is credit". You start looking through that lens and you'll see that buying stocks and the "US economy" actually lost money over the last 25 years. Gold price appreciation is probably a better indicator of true inflation than CPI, which would indicate that all the gains in the stock market since 2000 are less than the inflation related to government deficits. Value destruction on a long enough time line.

Blazin do you own any gold?
I do not currently hold any gold.