quote:

Originally posted by architect:


I am not doubting that you hold AT&T stock, but it isn't the same company your dad worked for.

My father worked for Bell South as a microwave data communications engineer. (LOS teletype systems between the MCLB and NIKE base)

Well, the Lucent from the breakup became worthless in the dotcom crash and 2.4 MILLION dollars went poof. Never even got to sell it on the dead cat bounce. I have 10K shares of T now as that is what was left has become. 1983 was the breakup and the shares were bought at just under $5 from a high of around $60 when they were sold and bought at $4.95. 1000 shares turned to 10,000.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeGLI:
GME going for another ride, anyone still holding shares?

I'm holding one whole share.

quote:

Originally posted by MikeGLI:
GME going for another ride, anyone still holding shares?

Yep. It’s entertaining, I’ll say that much.

Sell when it breaks the 8 EMA.

Interesting... Would this be a true rally, or just the proverbial "dead cat" bounce?

(Rhetorical, unless you have a working crystal ball, in which case hook a brother up.)

quote:

Originally posted by 41:


Sell when it breaks the 8 EMA.

What software is that and what do you use it for? I know it's for stocks but is it for day trading or for when to buy / sell for the long term?

Shares Outstanding 5 69.75M
Float 45.05M
% Held by Insiders 1 27.33%
% Held by Institutions 1 122.04%
Shares Short (Jan 29, 2021) 4 21.41M
Short Ratio (Jan 29, 2021) 4 0.37
Short % of Float (Jan 29, 2021) 4 78.46%
Short % of Shares Outstanding (Jan 29, 2021) 4 30.70%
Shares Short (prior month Dec 31, 2020) 4 71.2M

Looks like it may be a shorts covering rally.

quote:

Originally posted by Rey HRH:

quote:

Originally posted by 41:


Sell when it breaks the 8 EMA.

What software is that and what do you use it for? I know it's for stocks but is it for day trading or for when to buy / sell for the long term?

It is Steve Bigalow's optimized trading line which works on any time frame.
He has free trading webinar every Thursday night at 8PM EST:

https://stephenbigalow.com/events/

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 41,

I found this entertaining.

Aaand... we’re back.
GME broke through $200 briefly today, before settling at $193.
Sold enough to recoup most of my original investment, now riding some free shares.
And as it goes higher, I’ll buy some Puts at lower prices for the inevitable slide back down.

Up and up it continues to go. Will probably cross the $300 mark, today.
I’m buying April and July puts today, as well.

Hope you were watching it. It dropped $170 in 1/2 hour, then back up to finish the day at $265.

Lot of people lost their ass on that move. What a smack down. Hedge funds are all over this thing.

quote:

Originally posted by 41:
Hope you were watching it. It dropped $170 in 1/2 hour, then back up to finish the day at $265.

Fortunately, I do not have stop-loss orders on GME (too volatile).
I am now riding on a handful of free shares, after selling off gradually on this latest rise above $300.
My April and June puts now sit and wait for the ride back down.

Cashed out half of my AMC shares for a nice profit yesterday. I'm holding on to the other half, in case she squeezes.

I bought a small handful of shares and rode the initial rocket. Cashed out once it started to fall and made a little money.

Last week I dumped a bunch of Johnson & Johnson stock that wasn't doing much of anything. Dumped it all into GME.

quote:

Originally posted by SIG4EVA:
Cashed out half of my AMC shares for a nice profit yesterday.

I probably bought them (or some of them). I picked up 100 shares that same day. Then sold a covered call on them for Apr16 expiration. Nabbed a quick $204.

Robinhood Trader’s Battle Cry: ‘It’s All Just a Game to Me’

This isn’t a bull market or a bear market. It’s a know-nothing market.

Bragging rights used to go to those investors who worked the hardest at learning the most. Now the glory often goes to those who know the least and don’t even care. That has turned the traditional investing hierarchy upside down, although it probably won’t last.

“I don’t know what the f— I’m doing,” a young man said in a TikTok video in January. “I just know I’m making money.” He added that he’d been trading stocks for only three days, but “just like that, made $300 for the day.” In the next few weeks that young man, Danny Tran, racked up roughly 500,000 followers on TikTok.

At the WallStreetBets forum on Reddit, the online chat community, comments like “I can’t read” and “I have no idea what I’m doing” are common. Users insult each other’s—and their own—intelligence as terms of endearment and badges of honor. In February, commenters on WallStreetBets called themselves “stupid,” “idiot” or related terms 3,550 times, according to TopStonks.com, which tracks stocks mentioned on Reddit and other sites.

Rise of the Know-Nothings
Share of comments on WallStreetBets in which users mock their own intelligence
Source: TopStonks.com
Note: Based on counts of such terms as "ape," "stupid, "idiot," "I can't read," "no idea what I'mdoing"
%
April 2020
'21
0
1
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4
5
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11
Why are traders suddenly bragging about their own ignorance?

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Over the past year, as fiscal and monetary stimulus have flooded the economy with cash, U.S. stocks shot up more than 75%.

As of March 23, 95.9% of the slightly more than 3,000 stocks in the Wilshire 5000 Total Market Index had a positive total return over the prior 12 months, according to Wilshire. No other one-year period has come close to that since the end of February 2004, when 93% of stocks had positive 12-month returns.

You could have made good money even with bad stock picks. It was like being invited to bet on black, without limits, at a roulette wheel on which 37 of the 38 pockets were black.

Why waste time and energy educating yourself while sheer ignorance pays off so easily?

What’s more, many traders boasting of their own cluelessness are buying stocks with money they otherwise would have used for gambling.

The expected value of a lottery ticket is generally less than 65 cents on the dollar. Casinos, sports-betting websites and online gaming outfits take less “vigorish” as their cut, but on average the house always wins. Most bettors know that, but no one minds—because the hope of winning is so exciting, no matter the odds.

Now that just about anybody can trade commission-free, gambling on stocks offers a much better chance of making money than other kinds of wagers.

“As far as gambling-style entertainments go, buying a stock is a pretty good form,” says George Loewenstein, a behavioral economist at Carnegie Mellon University. “You can track it over time. It goes both up and down. A stock is much more fun than a lottery ticket, which is static and which assures that you will almost always lose.”

By switching from conventional gambling to stock trading, these speculators are already winners: They get at least as much entertainment value while paying much less to “the house.”

So it can be rational for new stock gamblers not to bother learning about what they’re buying. Research takes time and effort, and if you’re trading stocks purely for entertainment, then “it isn’t clear that getting more information would help you very much,” says Prof. Loewenstein.

Consider Mr. Tran, the TikTok trader, who just turned 22 years old. Last year, he lost his job in the shoe section of a department store in Phoenix. This January, he started trading stocks. “I had money laying around and I was bored and I just wanted to see what I could do with it,” he says.

Does he do any research? “I personally think I’m too lazy for that,” he says with a deep laugh. “When I tell you I don’t know what the f— I’m doing, I really mean it. It’s all just a game to me.”

Within days of his first TikTok video about trading, says Mr. Tran, he picked up more than 100,000 followers. “I just flexed money,” he says. Among his favorite buys: Tesla Inc., cryptocurrency miners Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. and Riot Blockchain Inc., Chinese electric-vehicle startup Nio Inc., AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and blank-check company Churchill Capital Corp IV.

“The majority of the time I’m winning, with barely any knowledge, so it’s been a fun process,” he says. “Knowing what you’re doing would always be good, but in this market anything is possible.”

Mr. Tran estimates that he put roughly $2,500 into stocks, which has grown to about $6,500 in less than three months.

That doesn’t count all the rewards Mr. Tran wangled out of Robinhood and other trading apps. As his burgeoning numbers of followers opened new accounts there, referral links showered him with free shares of stock worth a total of about $3,000 as of this week, he says.

“Where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise,” wrote the British poet Thomas Gray. One of these days, perhaps sooner rather than later, stocks will stop going up and the importance of understanding what you own will reassert itself. For the time being, though, investors who used to think of themselves as wise may continue to look foolish.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/r...07?mod=hp_lead_pos13

quote:

Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Tesla Inc., cryptocurrency miners Marathon Digital Holdings Inc. and Riot Blockchain Inc., Chinese electric-vehicle startup Nio Inc., AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. and blank-check company Churchill Capital Corp IV.

He hangs out on WallStreetBets on Reddit.

Another consequence of ignorance for the "YOLO Stonks LOL" crowd... Taxes!

(There will be another round come tax season next year, when all the new folks who jumped on the WallStreetBets/GME/AMC/etc. bandwagon over the past couple months, and dove headfirst into retail investing with little to no preparation or knowledge, go to do their 2021 taxes.)

From https://www.forbes.com/sites/s...ace-800000-tax-bill/

quote:

Robinhood Trader May Face $800,000 Tax Bill (despite only making $45,000 in net trading profits)

Over eight million people opened new brokerage accounts in the first three quarters of 2020. While the thrill of enormous stock gains may have provided a much needed distraction for some during the pandemic, unintended tax consequences are now manifesting for new investors. In one jaw-dropping case, a Robinhood newbie is facing a potential tax bill of $800,000 despite only making $45,000 in net trading profits; the individual also earned $60,000 at his day job. The example reinforces the importance of understanding complex trading rules and the tax implications of certain strategies. More broadly, it should serve as a loud warning for the new crop of do-it-yourself investors.

Robinhood Trader Transacted $45 Million Total Trades With Net Profit of $45,000
The case of the Robinhood trader, who hasn’t been identified, was first highlighted in Morningstar by Alexandra Macqueen. She describes how Brian Wruk, a financial planner, received a text from the 30-year old investor who was facing an $800,000 tax bill. Like many, the investor, who works full-time in insurance, opened a new brokerage account in 2020 and quickly scaled his trading. He had between $200,000 and $2 million in trading volume per day, completing between 10 and 50 trades daily, according to Morningstar.

Wruk also appeared to share the same anecdote on multiple forums, including one for the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors (NAPFA), which was posted on Twitter. In the post, Wruk describes the situation. “Young man calls me and says he opened up a brokerage account with $30k. . . in 2020, he transacted $45M (yes, Million) in total trades for a net profit of $45,000 by year end. He recently received his 1099-B and input it into Turbo Tax and to his chagrin, he had $1.4M in capital gain income and a tax bill of just over $800k.”

Investor Tripped Up By Wash Sale Rule
“This poor soul traded all of the popular stocks you see in the media consistently all year long. . . [but] he never knew anything about the wash sale rules” wrote Wruk. “He booked a profit but was disallowed all the losses because he never once waited the 30 days on those stocks to book the loss,” added Wruk.

The wash sale rule is an Internal Revenue Service (IRS) regulation that prohibits someone from claiming a loss by selling and purchasing either the same or similar securities within 30 days of the sale at a loss. To comply with the rule, investors must wait at least 31 days before repurchasing the same investment. “If people are going in and out of names quickly, and they’re generating losses and have offsetting positions, they’ve generated those losses within 30 days of a purchase, those losses get suspended,” explained Sandi Bragar, managing director at Aspiriant.

Retail investors now account for up to 25 percent of trades on peak days, according to Joe Mecane of Citadel. This is up from 10 percent in 2019 and is a result of lower barriers to entry for casual traders, including a strategy by many brokerages to eliminate trading fees. While the wash sale rule is meant to prevent taxpayers from taking advantage of stock losses, it is easily overlooked by many newbie investors. With so many more new traders using platforms like Robinhood, the rule “could pose a problem for novices who spent 2020 trading in and out of the same few stocks. Their investments may have lost value, but they won’t be able to claim a loss on their 1040 form.”

While you can’t use the loss to offset gains in a given year, the loss gets added to the cost basis of the new investment you made. “In the long run, there may be an upside to a higher cost basis—you may be able to realize a bigger loss when you sell your new investment or, if it goes up and you sell, you may owe less on the gain,” writes Fidelity. However, given that you cannot offset a realized gain in a specific year, you would still need to cough up money to cover taxes; for the Robinhood investor, that means $800,000.

“Free” Trades Come At A Price
Robinhood, one of the most popular investing apps and a pioneer in free trades, has captured the limelight several times in the past year. Most recently, it was the platform of choice for traders following the WallStreetBets message board on Reddit to drive up the price of GameStop.

Its user experience has also led to criticism. “Technology can make investing easy and fun. It can also downplay risk in ways that may lead novices astray,” wrote Jason Zweig, author of The Intelligent Investor column at The Wall Street Journal. “Robinhood may encourage risky behaviors that could backfire,” he added.

Being blindsided by a humongous tax bill is one thing, but Robinhood’s gamified approach has also led to tragic outcomes, like the case of Alexander E. Kearns. The 20-year-old student at the University of Nebraska died by suicide after misinterpreting his account and seeing a $730,000 negative balance.

The Upshot
Wruk, the financial planner, thinks ignorance of important regulations “may be the next way in what is to come with these DIY traders.” For new investors, it pays to consider the tax consequences of trading and ensure they don’t run afoul of IRS regulations, including the wash sale rule. Ignoring these rules can be perilous.