Cybertruck Reveal

[Dirtman]

What's really funny... the company is a elon musk(ish) place that built alternative energy wave powered generators.

 

[8thTon]

They have been lately. Hopefully that will continue.

Only because the government subsidizes their product.

I dont understand money as well as an adult my age should. But isn't stock price basically just a made up thing.... as in, elon goes on stage and dances around and people go "weeeeeee" and the stock price goes up, elon farts on a homeless kid the next day and people go "booooooo" and stock prices plummet? Thereby having nothing to do with the actual companies value in physical assets, profits or general worth to society?

The stock market has no relationship to the economy anymore, it is merely a casino. But is just a symptom of a bigger problem, in that the financial economy has lost all connection to the real economy of goods and services which it exists to facilitate transactions in. Things like the notional value of the Tesla corporation which are not based on anything real can disappear as quickly as they appeared.

 

[Dirtman]

Only because the government subsidizes their product.

The stock market has no relationship to the economy anymore, it is merely a casino. But is just a symptom of a bigger problem, in that the financial economy has lost all connection to the real economy of goods and services which it exists to facilitate transactions in. Things like the notional value of the Tesla corporation which are not based on anything real can disappear as quickly as they appeared.

I think that's what I said too but without looking at a thesaurus and just using farting on homeless kids as a reference...

 

[Uncle Gump]

I learned my lesson in the stock market. It pretty much cost me my entire retirement account over night. Wake up... it was gone.

I then just invested in myself and a small business where I had control of what happened to my investment.

 

[Dirtman]

Wouldn't it be cool to have a time machine to invest in dumb crap no one thought would go anywhere though? Amazon started as an online used book store... who the hell thought that would go anywhere?!

And who thought google would beat AOL?! AOL was king of the internet! Google was a weird terrible search engine.

 

[Uncle Gump]

I forgot to say thak you to EDS... Hewlit Packard and GM for my loss...

 

[Dirtman]

I forgot to say thak you to EDS... Hewlit Packard and GM for my loss...

I get the other two, what's eds?

 

[Uncle Gump]

Ross Perot.... EDS.

Electrical Data Systems... GM bought it... then spun it off... then HP bought them.

So I guess my stock portfolio burned me a couple times.

 

[Dirtman]

I just looked up my stock. I own 1000 shares. It's worth. 33 cents each. I dunno how to get my 330 bucks though... I could use that. I need corn.

 

[4.0blue98]

Buy bitcoins... ??

 

[1990RangerinSK]

I just looked up my stock. I own 1000 shares. It's worth. 33 cents each. I dunno how to get my 330 bucks though... I could use that. I need corn.

This might help: https://budgeting.thenest.com/sell-stocks-shares-10160.html

As for how the stock market works (not quoted, but you asked in an earlier post) stock (share) prices fluctuate depending on whether people are buying or selling shares. Buying drives the share price up. Selling drives the share price down. People will generally buy or sell based on how the company, and the price of its shares, is doing. If the company is wildly profitable, then people buy. If the company is losing money, people sell.

If I were in your shoes right now, before I did anything, I'd look at what the company, and it's share price, is doing. If the price is on the way up, you might want to wait for a while, because the value of your shares is also going up. If it's on the way down, it's likely a good time to sell, because your shares will lose value. HOWEVER, you also want to look at where the price is trending. If it's trending UPWARD, then it's a good idea to leave your money there for a while, even if, in the past few weeks, the price has dropped. It's going to go up again. If it's trending downward, but over the past few weeks, it's gone up, then it's probably time to sell.

Consider, too, the value of your shares today compared to the value of your shares when you bought them. If you bought at $0.25 per share, and they are now worth $0.12 per share, you're going to end up losing money if you sell now. BUT, if the price is trending downward, SELL NOW, because you might lose your shirt (and you without a shirt is NOT a sight I want to see!). If it's trending up, WAIT, because you'll want to try to make back your losses.

Hopefully that's somewhat clear. But, do me (and yourself!) a favour. Do NOT take my advice. I know enough to be dangerous. Talk to a broker before you do anything.

 

[stmitch]

Most people are far better off just investing in a low fee index fund that tracks the general stock market than trying to pick individual stocks. No advisors taking their cuts. Open an account with Vanguard, buy a US stock market fund, a US bond fund, and an international stock market fund. Tweak the balance based on your risk tolerance. Stocks are riskier than bonds, but bonds barely outearn inflation these days. International is high risk/high reward. US market funds are in between.

Stock picking is just gambling at this point. Not only do you have to know which company to invest in, you also have to know when to buy, and know when to sell the stock. You have to get lucky 3 times in order to cash in.

I agree that the current stock market seems driven by nothing of substance (especially Tesla's valuation), and that's scary, but show me a better alternative for growing wealth for an average person right now. I can't find one. Hoarding cash under a mattress is crazy and loses value over time. Real Estate is seeing the same sky-high valuations that stocks are, and requires you to have your eggs in a single, expensive basket that requires taxes/insurance/maintenance/work/ and is harder to sell when you want to cash out. I earned 30% on my money in the market last year and didn't have to lift a finger.

 

[Dirtman]

I invest heavily in cash. I paid for 75% of the new edge with cash and trade in. Cash works and doesn't randomly become worth nothing. I've considered buying gold and silver as a doomsday investment. Screw stocks and and nonsense investments. Cash is king.

 

[stmitch]

I invest heavily in cash. I paid for 75% of the new edge with cash and trade in. Cash works and doesn't randomly become worth nothing. I've considered buying gold and silver as a doomsday investment. Screw stocks and and nonsense investments. Cash is king.

A lot of people feel that way. There's security in cash. Unfortunately there's inflation too, and that means that $1 will be worth less in the future than it is now. It takes $1094.38 today to buy what you could buy for $1000 5 years ago:

CPI Inflation Calculator

That means that if you held cash under your mattress, or in a typical checking/savings account with basically no interest earned, every dollar you kept stashed away has had 9.4% of it's buying power eroded in the last 5 years. In other words, your $1000 didn't change in number, but they're only worth 905.63 now. So that secure feeling you get from having cash has cost you 9.4% minimum.

Now if you had put that $1000 into VTSAX (a low fee fund that follows the S&P500) back in 2015 it would've gained 53.07%, giving you $1530 now.

Google Search

And now we get into opportunity cost, because while your cash was sitting, costing you 9.4%, you missed out on 53% gains, so the total cost in this case for holding cash instead of investing in a simple fund is 1530-905.63= $624.37 or 62% interest(!).
Compound interest is an incredibly powerful tool that can work for you or against you. It's much nicer when it's on your side. If nothing else, I hope you're keeping your cash in a high interest savings account to at least get closer to keeping up with inflation. IF your savings can keep up with inflation, then all you're missing out on is the investment gains ($530 in the example above), which is still a lot, but that's not guaranteed.

 

[fastpakr]

Only because the government subsidizes their product.

That's phased out. Those credits were down to 50% of the original amount through the end of June, then 25% through the end of the year. If they continue to be profitable over the next couple of quarters, they've definitely made it beyond requiring any initial assistance.