Stock market dealing

[Justin Passing]

Some surprise, that though the qqq5 did go up about 8%, of which about half was accessible, there is reluctance.

Still an all, by buying some of the available NASDAQ stocks in the prematrket, near 6% wasn't a strain.
That's an entire year's building society interest.
Here on, pick picky picky. Only buy something when it's rising, otherwise leave the cash in a MM fund at just over 5%.

India, which did so well, has had a couple of bad days, of profit taking. Still great for a year, but it would depend when you bought.

 

[Justin Passing]

Next big watershed, possibly, 22nd May, NVIDIA results. WHatever the results, the price may jump up or down a lot. The rest of the market will likely follow. Up to then it'll probably ease up, but if you're investing right now, you might consider a Money Market fund, which will be a consistent 5.1% say, maybe FTSE100, which is doing OK right now,.China large companies have been doing ok, and fairly secular from the USA, likely to be a bit positive. My wife has a pension fund where 77% is in MM, with some more or less left in some tech and the FTSE with little attention. In the last weeks the non MM has earned a little more than the MM funds, so a decent compromise.
I have lumps of money in yhre higherst risk/return Global Tech funds. Those wil be switching elsewhere for results day. If the markets like the results, that'll cost me in lost profits perhaps, but I'll have to look at it as expensive insurance. I'll keep some, as a hedge. The tech sector could always drop 20% based on not much. It's unlikely, I can reduce the risk, and that wouldn't be anywhere near wiping out the gains so far this year. Long view needed.

Today wass a pain. Mara went up about 4% then reversed, with a lot of minor reversals. So I came out with about 5 and a bit %, which was a lot of effort. Multiplied by 5 as usual. It's now in CHina, which as it happened lost 1.3% today.

 

[Arbu]

Today wass a pain. Mara went up about 4% then reversed, with a lot of minor reversals. So I came out with about 5 and a bit %, which was a lot of effort. Multiplied by 5 as usual. It's now in CHina, which as it happened lost 1.3% today.

All things must pass. Poor jobless data should have sent it up, but it came down to start with, funnily.

 

[Justin Passing]

All things must pass. Poor jobless data should have sent it up, but it came down to start with, funnily.

Actually 5% is still good, in the scheme of things, at 5:1.
Those chasing the Mag 7 and the like werer really struggling. Catena makes a huge fuss about 2 dollar moves on a $500 stock. Beats me why, when you can watch four or so related stocks move together and join the simplest one, which is usually MARA, and ot usually goes a few %.. I was wary of jumping in deep, but the pattern emerged - until it reversed so lost a bit on the turn.
Day trading is still fun to a point but the "savings" funds are much heavier at this point so they command attention. I ought to forget about them but it goes against the grain. Is it better to have £(big number) sitting in MM at 5.2% or to fret about it where's it's jumping 1% up or down per day.
An estate agent I know came to me about pair of HMOs in Shepherd's Bush. Undoubtedly a good investment but I CBA.

I'm expecting some sort of string movements in SMC and NVD. But it'll be Participate not Anticipate.

 

[Justin Passing]

@Arbu, have you stopped what you were doing?
It seems to me that for whatever reason, you weren't able to assimilate enough of the technical bits and pieces , with a productive mindset, to do anything other than keep your pot on the downtrend.

Nothing I'm saying ever is recommendation, OK, so don't throw anything back at me again. All is up to you.
What you probably could do, which is what I've been trying/doing sort-of in the background, is watching momentum. By that I mean what's doing well, right now. There are lots of sector scanners for that. EG I wouldn't dump all my investments into highest tech right now, because it has been pretty choppy over the "few days" timescale. OTOH the FTSE has been trending up. China, India, Japan are worth watching. CHina large cap has generally been moving up recently, whereas India and Japan are showing better signs, but not much consistency yet. SImilarly, Utilities is the one sector (iirc) which has ignored the dips, and Financials is interesting atm..
EG (not a recommendation) If the FTSE does well for a while, watch out and as long as there's no sign of much changing, find as good a pullback as you can and put some money in it and keep a close eye on it. bear in mind the 0.5% tax (which will be there in the ETFs spread too , probably), and there's a good chance that it'll carry on up some. The odds are in your favour.
You can use things like the MACD or Commodity Channel indicators to identify a short term dip. If you get it micro-wrong, the macro-uptrend will probably recover you if you hold.
It's "the same" as day trading, but you have more time to reflect on your entries and exits, so you can be more considered and maybe less emotional.
Try it in the SIM for a couple of weeks. It's like swing trading, but only on a trend.

Stooging about I found Macdonalds, an often-suggested long term hold. I bought a tiny bit, I'm looking for a bottom. It's a bit slow, but has been ranging in the same rising channel for ~5 years. I don't know of any reason why it's reatively down now, reports say family budgets squeezed is all. They've released a $5 deal - sounds good.

It would be better to find something which didn't go down when the spy did go down, but these guys results were decent and good for their sector. Maccy D's are still very popular with US kids. The wave theorists seem to think they're near a bottom. No Sh.. Sherlock.
Come back in July/August...?

 

[Odds]

The Bank of England can already see the next financial crisis on the horizon. It doesn't have the power to stop it alone. Fears are focused upon the "nonbank financial intermediation" industry — a lengthy term covering any type of major investor which isn't a bank, such as hedge funds, pension funds, insurers or private equity. The market turmoil that a major collapse within this sector could trigger is hardly an issue that respects borders, and warnings have already been issued by watchdogs in the EU, U.S. and further afield. But for Threadneedle Street, it’s a particularly pressing problem because British businesses now rely on financial markets and nonbanks for half their funding. Any crunch or turmoil would therefore not only create problems in the City of London — it could have an immediate effect on thousands of people’s jobs.

A long read @Politico tells how the financial system in the U.K., and globally, nonbanks now account for half the financial system. While half of funding for U.K. businesses comes directly from financial markets and nonbanks, it's only 27 percent in the EU. Nathanaël Benjamin, executive director at the BoE, in an April speech warned of “the growth in kinds and quantity of leverage, or ‘leverage on leverage’, throughout the ecosystem.”

 

[Arbu]

Nathanaël Benjamin, executive director at the BoE, in an April speech warned of “the growth in kinds and quantity of leverage, or ‘leverage on leverage’, throughout the ecosystem.”

Sounds like a windbag, no?

 

[Arbu]

It's easy, if you don't do it wrong.
Bitcoin moves, all the rest move, you pick one, open, and watch. Why is that hard?

Betting on the horses is easy too. Get on betfair, see which horse is winning after a minute, and put your money on it. Nothing hard about doing that at all.

And it seems that what you suggest with crypto is easy too. Yesterday bitcoin started by coming down. Coinbase was coming down, and reversed - get in on that! Then bitcoin was coming up, Marathon and Riot were also showing an uptrend and reversals. Get in on those! Indeed, nothing difficult.

• 13/05/2024 18:12
  Riot Blockchain Inc
  +3
  971.5 (15:08)
  954.6
  -£50.70
• 13/05/2024 16:15
  Marathon Digital Holdings Inc
  +2
  1807.7 (15:06)
  1753.4
  -£108.60
• 13/05/2024 15:47
  Marathon Digital Holdings Inc
  +2
  1795.7 (15:19)
  1757.4
  -£76.60
• 13/05/2024 14:50
  Coinbase Global Inc (All Sessions)
  -0.14
  20210 (14:41)
  20629
  -£58.66
• 13/05/2024 14:50
  Coinbase Global Inc (All Sessions)
  -0.10
  20210 (14:41)
  20585
  -£37.50
• Total
  -£332.06
  
  
  So what have I failed to assimilate now?

@Arbu, have you stopped what you were doing?

No, life goes on. But I'm going to take a break now for three weeks.

 

[Justin Passing]

Betting on the horses is easy too. Get on betfair, see which horse is winning after a minute, and put your money on it. Nothing hard about doing that at all.

You can't do that with horses. But you can with stocks.

So what have I failed to assimilate now?

The news i/a, on that day iirc.. There were various people saying things which affected the different "names". Bitcoin halved recently too, which affected the brokers and miners in different ways.

If they're all over the place and you can't identify a trend, you have no trend to follow, so don't follow it.

Was that the SMCI day? - it went from something like 830 to 940. Took all day. Spread's horrible so ease yourself in with that one.

Had a bit of a go at the Meme stocks but they need too much concentraton.

The Google AI catalyst was a gift - the chatting thing impressed everyone so the stock behaved.

3KWE was still behaving, but I sold some Thursday.

 

[Justin Passing]

@Arbu I think the more serious thing that you've failed to assimilate the fact that you are determined to lose money.

You must be. I just checked one of those trades, it was ridiculous. Assinine. The biggest one. There are three obvious things wrong with it. Go back and find them. Be honest. Don't try to pretend there was some higher thought in mid. There are overwhelming, in your face things which trump that sort of nonsense you've tried before.

Maybe there's an "Ain't it Awful" game
or a
"look what you made me do" game
or a
"look how hard I'm trying" game
or a
"look how useless I am" game
or a
"look I'm hurting and you aren't caring" game
going on.

I'm no therapist, but often when someone does that there's someone they want to get the message, like an ex/partner, child, parent, god, younger self or whatever.

You aren't being honest with yourself.
If you wrote down a few simple things which I and every book will tell you, and checked it, understood it, and followed what it said, you wouldn't be constantly going wrong with your trades, or so far down when you do.

I expect you're hurting yourself, far more than anyone else.

If you want help from me, analyse that trade.

 

[Justin Passing]

Portents odf doom are everywhere, as always, but this week is another where we could be at something of a tipping point.
NVIDIA, the onetime game manufacturer, is at the top of the tech tree. New Results will be out soon.

Their chips are the most powerful in the world. USA has restricted their sale to China.
There's a waiting list - they can sell all they make.
I'm out of date on the price - the last/current top one was $40,000. $400 will get you a very very fast processor for PC ($40 would do) , the differences are huge. The NVIDIA processor come with a supporting cast, a whole infrastructure. You use the beasts in quantity. That means you can't simply switch to say, manufacturer AMD. If you want AI, well, you go to NVIDIA. The big companies - Apple , Google and the rest are at various points along the road of making their own chips. Once-king Intel is flailing in a ditch at the moment, someone took the caffeine out of their coffee. The US gov is funding them to produce the next generation, but iot takes years. The business will be different by then.
It's in a strange state right now. The single company which makes the equipment to make the best chips, is in the Netherlands (ASML), The single company which makes those best chips, is in Taiwan (TSMC). YOu can't make anything without wafers - other companies again.

Them wot usually have a better steer on things than mere mortals feel that the highest tech stock prices are due a correction, but that good quality companies in the boring sectors will continue to prosper. The better supermarkets, say, which give good value and also serve those with some money - the middle class if you like.
Everything needs power so Uranium (a whole sector) is doing well, copper is used for all tech to the price is going up (too fast - it is "squeezing".
People are flapping somewhat, so gold is rallying, but gold as an investment has never carried on to be good for long.

I have a pretty boring range of slow churn stocks, which bowler-hat men would call investments. I don't much like dividend stocks (I'm not alone, but many disagree), 5 ish percent is a decent rate available from many sources, so I have some in that, but there are bonds in "less good quality" companies which give better returns and are pretty safe,
One of the canonical "wise " choices, the S % P 500, has done quite well since , say, January, but had a dip, which took agility to hop across. I didn't do that perfectly by any means.
One of my wife's pension funds is basically in a 5.2% etf but I move about 20% of it around. At the moment, a chumk of the 20% is in the FTSE, which moved 8000 to 8400, but has now plateaued off. As mentioned elsewhere, the problem with the likes of pension funds is the time ittales to switch. Too many bowler hats in the way, in many cases. From the end of this week, the SPY will have settle from whatever NVDAs rsults bring, and from here looks like a reasonable punt again.
In my more mobile accounts I am holding 3GOO and 3KWE which are Google, x3, and Chinese internet/large cap stocks, x3.
I hop into Rolls Royce x3 when they're doing well. Similarly, a couple of the UK banks have been on a run. (Ll, Natwest).
Centrica which was a poster-boy until it was rumbled has made a comeback. I put a bit on it for a punt.
Apple should do well, we think they should be announcing an AI product soon - a bit speculative that one.
A few at the moment: We'll see how they go
NVDA______________________________ 925
KWEB (or KWBP)__________________ 32
GOOGL____________________________ 177
Lloyds _____________________________ 55
Apple_____________________________ 189
Natw_____________________________ 320
FTSE 100_________________________ 8420
SPY500___________________________ 5300
CNA _____________________________344

(I'm mentioning "3x" and so on stocks, They can be marvellous or terrible. Avoid, unless you're on constant watch.
If you buy a "3x" and the base stock drops 30%, you lose 90% of your money.)