There's no implication that stimulus-fueled retail investors somehow single-handedly lifted the U.S. stock market. I think the basic point was to just say they ploughed a decent amount of their stimmie checks into it is all. . .I think.BWV said:12/31/19 market cap of US stocks was ~$34T, down 20% after the COVID crash that would be $27T, $100B is not that much money on that scale
New York (CNN Business)The agency that oversees Wall Street is weighing major changes to the way millions of everyday investors buy and sell stocks. That could be bad news for so-called free-trading apps like Robinhood as well as the lesser known firms that underpin their business models.
Today, when you buy or sell a stock on an app, the trade appears to be instantaneous. But beneath that simple buy/sell action is a complex web of Wall Street players exploiting tiny differences in price to rake in huge amounts of cash.
Here's how it works: When you tap buy or sell, Robinhood (or your broker of choice), takes your order to a firm known as a wholesaler or market maker — the middlemen who are supposed to get you the best price and who pay the brokers for the privilege of executing the trades. They typically make pennies off each transaction. . .
Gensler and other critics of the process say the brokers and market makers, such as Citadel Securities, have a clear conflict of interest, and that payment for order flow screws over everyday investors while amassing huge wealth for Wall Street firms.
Now, it appears that the SEC may roll out new rules as early as Wednesday, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources.
One proposed new rule, the paper said, would add more competition at the middleman level to ensure retail investors are actually getting the best prices. In that scenario, orders would be routed into auctions where trading firms would have to compete to execute them.
It's still pretty doggone annoying. I found a GreaseMonkey script which makes it a little less intolerable. It at least allows logins with a password manager.BWV said:Sure, but the -7.5% yield on 1-year TIPS makes the Treasury Direct site palatable
Stock market looks to be headed for a terrible day on top of a terrible couple of days ending last week. Right now DIA implies that the DJIA will open down 500 and the S&P 500 and the NASDAQ are looking to do even worse percentage-wise.kyphysics said:Bitcoin - down 13% pre-market
Ethereum - down 17% pre-market
other cryptos crashing too ...
June 13, 2022 08:41 AM ET (BZ Newswire) -- Cryptocurrency
Cryptocurrency-related stocks, including Coinbase Global Inc (NASDAQ:COIN), Marathon Digital Holdings Inc (NASDAQ:MARA) and Riot Blockchain Inc (NASDAQ:RIOT), are trading lower Monday amid a sharp decrease in the price of Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC) and Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH).
Bitcoin, the world's oldest cryptocurrency, fell to its lowest levels since the end of 2020 on Monday. The crypto market seems to be falling amid a selloff in broader risk assets after traditional markets traded sharply lower last week in the wake of runaway inflation data.
Crypto lending company Celsius stopped withdrawals for its customers, which has sparked investor fear. Binance also paused Bitcoin withdrawals, citing a "stuck transaction."
It's interesting that people think "up is good, down is bad", but it depends on whether you are buying or selling, doesn't it? And based on comments in this thread, it appears we have more buyers than sellers.phinds said:Stock market looks to be headed for a terrible day
It's interesting that Bitcoin had a remarkably stable May, hovering around $30,000 almost the entire month. Sure, it had lots of $1,000+ swings, but it just went back and forth around $30k. It did something similar at $40k in April (the drop from $40k to $30k happened over just a few days in the first week in May). It looks like people are setting buying price targets at $10k increments, which hold it at that level until the buying runs-out. If that's the trend it could be dropping to $20k and then holding for the rest of the month...kyphysics said:Bitcoin - down 13% pre-market
Ethereum - down 17% pre-market
other cryptos crashing too ...
I've heard crypto advocates argue the opposite, that other cryptos have features that address flaws in Bitcoin and so are "better". But none as far as I can tell address their schizophrenic nature and lack of reason for existing (not that I'm a general expert in crypto).kyphysics said:What do you all make of the argument that BTC is the real deal, while other cryptos are not (either Ponzi schemes and/or lack the truly decentralized and scarcity traits BTC has)?
Celsius, and other platforms (such as popular exchanges), are indeed doing similar shady things than banks (no need to go back to the 1800's, just what is going on now). That's not cryptocurrencies though.BWV said:with Celsius, we have a good old fashioned bank failure - crypto, at best, has successfully recreated the instable private banking / money system of the 1800s. But this would be the most optimistic take on it, I personally believe this is just the early innings of a complete wipeout of bitcoin and other CCs. Celsius maybe is analogous to Bear Stearns failing, when Tether collapses later this year it will be analogous to Lehman, but there is no bailout and miners won't support the ecosystem if mining becomes unprofitable, so ISTM the collapse will be fast, not slow. The baseball card you overpaid for in the 90s can gather dust in your dresser forever, what happens to BTC when no one will spend the $ to maintain the network?
fluidistic said:I would like to see Tether fail sooner than later. Everyone knows it's going to collapse, at least on reddit.
In the words of Ralph Wiggum, "That's unpossible!" Isn't crypto supposed to be a stable store of value?BWV said:crypto implosion
If diablo immortal needs eight different in-game currencies to manage their freemium offerings, why shouldn't the world writ large have 8,000 of them?Vanadium 50 said:In the words of Ralph Wiggum, "That's unpossible!" Isn't crypto supposed to be a stable store of value?
Seriously, if crypto can't make up its mind whether it is a currency or a casino, it deserves to crash. Indeed, For that matter, does the world really need two orders of magnitude more cyptocurrencies than national currencies? I would argue that 99.9% of them should fail.
russ_watters said:No, it's the friend of a friend who "invested" because a bro convinced them to that I have real sympathy for.
kyphysics said:Who thinks there should be mandatory investing curriculum in high school?
Did you mean incapable of managing money instead for bolded part?Office_Shredder said:It's not obvious that kind of thing will help.
https://money.usnews.com/money/personal-finance/family-finance/articles/2018-08-28/do-financial-literacy-courses-work
I think it would especially not have helped here. No 40 year old was going to learn about stablecoins in school. Most of the people putting all their money in these things are incapable of losing money, and I doubt a class 24 years ago would have helped him realize that this wasn't true.
I doubt it would as well. We have people who think they understand ginance based on raeding a few tweets and listening to a couple of podcasts.Office_Shredder said:I doubt a class 24 years ago would have helped him realize that this wasn't true.
kyphysics said:Who thinks there should be mandatory investing curriculum in high school?
Office_Shredder said:It's not obvious that kind of thing will help.
I think it would especially not have helped here. No 40 year old was going to learn about stablecoins in school. Most of the people putting all their money in these things are incapable of losing money, and I doubt a class 24 years ago would have helped him realize that this wasn't true.
I don't know, it might. To me it is more basic/broad than learning stablecoins specifically. And even such basic things as "don't be stupid", "don't be gullible", "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is" and "you're an adult now, start acting like it" are things a lot of people need to hear/get.Vanadium 50 said:I doubt it would as well.
Gym? Art? Put the "economics" back in "home economics"?Vanadium 50 said:Besides, what would this replace? Math? English? Cut a little out of every other course?
I could see a history/lesson(s) in the following being helpful:russ_watters said:I don't know, it might. To me it is more basic/broad than learning stablecoins specifically. And even such basic things as "don't be stupid", "don't be gullible", "if it sounds too good to be true it probably is" and "you're an adult now, start acting like it" are things a lot of people need to hear/get.
The anecdote is about how there was a hot trend in investing in the early '80s (?) when people were converting their dollars to Mexican Pesos and depositing them into Mexican banks because they offered better interest rates than American banks. Cool hack, and completely safe since the Peso was pegged to the dollar by the Mexican government.
First investment book I bought, at age 22. Dated now of course, but still readable and the mindset is timeless.russ_watters said:However, this specific case reminds me of an anecdote in a book I've talked about here that my dad first bought me maybe 25 years ago. It's called "The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need". I
kyphysics said:
^^reposting from the Today I Learned thread
I think this is where position sizing matters a lot. I've heard a ton of people say to just take 1% of your assets/net worth and put it into bitcoin, b/c if it goes to the moon and turns out to be the greatest investment of all time, then you don't want to miss this. On the other hand, 1% won't kill you if it went to absolute 0.
You might say 1% wouldn't gain you much either. Fair enough. And you could also say that lots of early stage speculative companies might have just as equal of a chance of getting you 100x gains - like gene editing or artificial intelligence stoc
The thing I don't understand with people investing in bitcoin or crypto is why they'd put like 50% or more of their assets into it. Some are just so crazed they are basically 100% into it. That is diversification suicide obviously...violates basic investing principles and common sense. I do feel bad, too, for those who were tricked into buying crypto by Ponzi scheme pumpers, but I still feel like many should have known not to put everything into it.
And, if someone was like 40 years old+ doing that?...really bad. I figure if you're in your 20's...maybe up through 30's even (at most) and don't have a lot of life experience with investing, okay, I could see you making this dumb mistake...40 y/o+...? should have known better. Why put ALL your eggs into this shaky asset?
Sure, but by same token they can "invest" in horse racing, lottery tickets and roulette.fluidistic said:They have very little to lose in placing most of their money into crypto,
fluidistic said:About diversification, sure... easy to do when you're rich and can afford the whole spectrum of things to invest in
I agree. There are nuances though, between horse racing, lottery and cryptocurrencies in general. With lottery, it's easier to figure out your chances of winning (and how much you'll more likely lose if you "invest" in lottery tickets over the years), in horse racings you may gain knowledge and have a higher chances of winning than others, whereas with crypto, you have to either bet it's useless/useful and/or worthless/worth of something.Vanadium 50 said:Sure, but by same token they can "invest" in horse racing, lottery tickets and roulette.
It is much easier now than it used to be: VTTXX (Target 2060 retirement) is a mix of domestic large cap, domestic small cap and international stocks, domestic bonds and international bonds. It is heavily weighted towards stocks, but over time the bond fraction will grow. Minimum initial investment is $1000; for subsequent investments it's $1. The expense ratio is 0.08%
Investment products are much, much easier to access than thy were when I was starting out. (Back then, stock prices were measured in eighths of a dollar, that's how long ago it was,)