Shares

[Sparky]

Aaaaaand it's all gone to crap again.

[Bibs]

It's been a day of up a lot and then down! 

[Mysterae]

12 hours ago, Bibs said:

I've never invested in BTC, don't have the balls as it can be very volatile at best! Just checked the price and it's down 12% today back to close to the above again after getting to £32k!

 

Volatile is certainly right, it even hit a high of £34.7k yesterday. It's now being seen more as a 'store of value' rather than the currency it was first envisioned as, a bit like gold but in reverse, although that is conjecture.

I got caught up in the BTC craze back in '17 the last time things were on the up, using my gaming pc to mine and even building my own mining rig   

Then the arse fell off most if not all crypto and it was no longer profitable (mining was costing £100 a month on electricity), I've been hodling (sic) ever since.

 

[Bibs]

I just had a bunch of TUI shares dumped into my account. No idea why yet but a result as they've gone to the dogs this week! 

[Kimbers]

On 04/01/2021 at 17:40, Sparky said:

Aaaaaand it's all gone to crap again.

Mine aren't too bad. I am just a few hundred pounds above breaking even which isn't bad considering the state we are in. But many of my shares are Insurance companies, drinks companies, supermarkets and even a Security company. 

[TdM]

My seeing machines shares have been flying of late. Very promising company.

[C8RKH]

My portfolio (investments and pension fund) is up 10% on Pre-COVID and riding high.  One happy bunny to be honest. If this continues retirement comes forward 2 years, maybe 3!  However, who knows what may happen over the next year or so.

[TdM]

I think some care is needed this year. Valuations are high especially in the US and quite disconnected from reality in places. Lots of froth so it's quite dangerous ATM. still done value out there but definitely be mindful and don't get carried away!

[SFO]

26 minutes ago, TdM said:

I think some care is needed this year. Valuations are high especially in the US and quite disconnected from reality in places. Lots of froth so it's quite dangerous ATM. still done value out there but definitely be mindful and don't get carried away!

For example, Tesla .. if ever there was a bubble 

[Kimbers]

Well, G4S are being bought out and my Cash offer means I go from a loss of several hundred to a small profit. Take into account the 3 years of dividend reinvestment and I am up quite a bit. So used the Cash to buy into a Silver Mining company. 

Silver is not only a precious metal but used in phones and It is also used in dental alloys, solder and brazing alloys, electrical contacts and batteries. I read a while ago that Silver is actually a great investment, even more so than Gold because it doesn't vary in value as much, it just tends to go up.

This is proved in the price of Scrap Silver. As a Silver antique buyer and seller I have seen scrap 925 Silver go from £0.27 a g 2 years ago to this year around £0.48 today. 

I think its a good investment going forward (the shares and Silver).

[TdM]

Silver is a good shout as is copper and lithium

[cweeden]

I wish I had some of these before the sheep all bought in...

https://qz.com/1956105/elon-musks-tweet-about-signal-boosts-shares-of-the-wrong-company/

 

[Mysterae]

I wonder what you's think about the GameStop shorting and the Reddit/WallStreetBets situation? Some major shorters getting burned. 

Looks like BlackBerry (remember them?!) are next.

https://www.ft.com/content/f8937ac7-da4a-41a6-bbbf-7b573e8ed72b

[Kimbers]

erm.....whats shorting?

[andydclements]

Serious question?

 

If so.

Imagine, I sell you a Evora 410, the only thing is I didn't actually own it, I borrowed it and the person agreed that I could sell it, so long as in 6months time I return an identical Evora 410 to them or give them the money equivalent to its market value at the time. Great, as I'm sure the value of the 410 will drop over the next few months.  6 months down the line, the value has dropped, I've taken the money you gave me, I've bought an identical 410 and given it to the person I originally borrowed it from  and I've pocketed the difference.

If I made a monumental F up, and the price of410s goes up, then I'm going to have to dig into my own money and buy the replacement car at the now higher price.

 

People think it's only happening on shares etc, but sometimes high street stores are doing it to a lesser extent. Customer go and buy the new advertised games console / phone/ whatever, to be delivered in two weeks time. The retailer may not actually have the stock in the warehouse, but they now go and place the orders with the manufacturer. All works out so long as the retailer predicted the price right, if the manufacturer cannot deliver for some reason then the retailer has a bit of a problem.

[100th_Idiot]

Nice video.

Well played kids.

[Mysterae]

To add to what @andydclementssaid, shorting is like a bet that something will be worth less (or even fail) in the future, quite the cynical business bearish tactic. In the strange case of GameStop it's 140% shorted which is technically illegal or at least should be. A $12 dollar GME share in December is currently worth $148 at this moment in time; no wonder investors (Melvin Capital) who shorted stand to lose $5 billion. But the losses could get higher, in fact their losses are potentially unlimited. Imagine shorting a $12 share betting it'll go for say $6 and you borrow 1 million of them but the price when the short is called is $1,000. Ouch.

[andydclements]

Personally, I agree with @Mysterae that shorting should be illegal, but perhaps for a different reason.  I don't have a problem with the idea of the firm making profit by predicting share value decrease (I acknowledge that they also have a slight hand in driving it down), but my problem is more that it's an unlimited loss and as such could bankrupt theoretically any investor and can result in a serious weakening of the stability of the whole market (that we all rely on for pensions etc). We strictly regulate banks etc for what investments they hold, to such an extent they aren't even allowed to hold some investments (which is ridiculous as they are forced to offload them once they've become virtually worthless, driving the value even lower), and we do that for the safety of the UK banking industry and how it impacts all of us, so why not investment markets to a similar extent?

[SFO]

Shorting is illegal IF you don't have shares (usually borrowed) behind your sale. This avoids the no of shares available being artificially inflated by the selling of shares that don't exist. 
 

shorting is just another pricing mechanism, and is as old as trade itself. 

4 hours ago, andydclements said:

Personally, I agree with @Mysterae that shorting should be illegal, but perhaps for a different reason.  I don't have a problem with the idea of the firm making profit by predicting share value decrease (I acknowledge that they also have a slight hand in driving it down), but my problem is more that it's an unlimited loss and as such could bankrupt theoretically any investor and can result in a serious weakening of the stability of the whole market (that we all rely on for pensions etc). We strictly regulate banks etc for what investments they hold, to such an extent they aren't even allowed to hold some investments (which is ridiculous as they are forced to offload them once they've become virtually worthless, driving the value even lower), and we do that for the safety of the UK banking industry and how it impacts all of us, so why not investment markets to a similar extent?

Shorting was never a cause of the 2008 banking crisis .. it was sub prime loans in the USA. Loans against houses that were rubbish (and mostly worthless) collateral 

[Bazza 907]

If anybody is interested, the FCA gives publicly disclosed short positions on its website so you can see who and by how much they are betting on a share price fall on any individual company. Last one available was as at 25 Jan.

[andydclements]

2 hours ago, SFO said:

Shorting is illegal IF you don't have shares (usually borrowed) behind your sale. This avoids the no of shares available being artificially inflated by the selling of shares that don't exist. 
 

shorting is just another pricing mechanism, and is as old as trade itself. 

Shorting was never a cause of the 2008 banking crisis .. it was sub prime loans in the USA. Loans against houses that were rubbish (and mostly worthless) collateral 

I don't know whether you misinterpreted the post I made. I never stated nor inferred that shirting and the 2008 banking crisis were linked as cause and effect. I only called out that the latter has resulted in lots of regs to safeguard the industry as banking collapsing would be catastrophic to the whole nation, as would a crash in the markets but that seems to be far less strictly regulated.

[TdM]

IMO this will all be fun and games 'til someone loses an eye. GS has been massively inflated above fair market value, everyone on Reddit seems to think they are all making money. Lots will, but as soon as they get bored and start selling out, the least sophisticated of the group will be left holding the baby (i.e. probably a big loss) the shorters will have got shorts at a higher level again and will make money on the way down.

The big boys will have hedged their shorts anyway when this started getting silly, they have all manner of ways of managing the situation. As usual it will be some poor PI left with egg on their face.

[Kimbers]

Hope you all invested in Silver like I recommended!¬

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-55882758

[Mysterae]

It's a fun time to be in the shares business - so much money flying around and loads of bored people! There's much talk on Reddit about the rise on silver, some saying it's a diversion tactic from GameStop (which is falling even in After Hours Trading), some saying it was instigated on Reddit and others saying it a manipulation tactic to bail out RobinHood who's cash balance is in such a critical position it stopped buying GameStop shares (unless you put up equal collateral). Even eToro is forcing 'stop losses' on people's GameStop shares without asking or informing them.

 

[RobinB5]

I've been following the 'discussions' on r/WallStreetBets, a lot of angry people on a crusade and a lot of latecomers that will get burned by GME. Think it will be quite some time yet before retail investors will get the better of the institutions.