Anything new these days, Xerty?
2021 Q2, total returns, belated update.
| ticker | type | 2021 Q2 |
|---|---|---|
| QQQ | tech | +9% |
| SPY | large caps | +7% |
| EFA | foreign (developed) | +5% |
| IWM | small caps | +3% |
| EEM | foreign (emerging) | +3% |
| BND | bonds | +2% |
| JNK | junk bonds | +2% |
| GLD | gold | +2% |
| USD | cash | +0% |
| BTC | bitcoin | -41% |
Live by the bits, die by the bits. All non-crypto assets had a moderately good quarter. These were a pretty low hurdle to beat with active trading and Iām happy to have done so 
.
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BNTX sold about 2/3 this week at around $250, up from $150ish average about a year ago. I think covid fear / sentiment is a bit too high currently so Iām taking some profits.
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Is there any correlation between Bezos stepping down as CEO of Amazon, and him being shot into outer space on a rocket? Itās probably [mostly] coincidence, but it does appear to function as a move to protect/firewall the stock should something go wrong with his flight.
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I would have thought it was a hard requirement from the board and that it isnāt a coincidence at all.
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Finally made the jump to unemployed. Got offered (indefinite) leave without pay instead if I wantā¦ but despite that situation triggering cobra and having no guarantee of reemployment, it would keep the employer sponsored retirement account locked down (and thatās ~30% of my nw).
My plan had been to convert that to IRA and sell/buy holdings I have in taxable. I think Iām going to stick with a clean break.
Only squishy benefit with unpaid leave is I could claim iām still employed 6, 12, months down the line, and also not show an employment āgapā. But the lost taxes if I canāt move my funds seem to be very expensive.
(Also cannot do trad-> roth conversions within the plan eitherā¦ which I would be otherwise planning if next year ended up no W2. I need to reexamine how much I could actually access of this though, post if the trad is tied up in a contract I can only change from at 10%/yr)
I suppose I could aim to decide where to move on near the end of next year, that would allow me to still do trad->roth conversion in 2022 tax year. So mainly just the losses from high risk/ return holdings being trapped in my taxable brokerage account if I go with leave instead.
Wouldnāt your income be lower next year, so rolling the trad 401k out of the company and converting a trad IRA to Roth would be a lower cost next year than this with partial employment? Hopefully your income wouldnāt preclude this, but TBD on what they pass in that new āwe hate you saving for retirementā section of the big spending bill.
You could still take the tax losses on whatever taxable holdings you have for this year, and just wait out the wash sale period. Marketās feeling a bit flaky right now anyway, probably not a bad time to start your 30 day clock. Iām not sure why you refer to them being ātrappedā in taxable.
Yes I wouldnāt be doing any trad->roth conversions this year, only qualified plan roth ā roth ira. But I wouldnāt be able to next year either, unless I terminated the arrangement.
Nothing in my taxable account has losses.
Right now I have some cash and other low risk investments in the employer sponsored account. You can only invest in what the employer deems you would be allowed to, which is only a list of funds. I actually currently have a decent chunk (>$100k) of Roth sitting in money market in the employer sponsored planā¦
What I mean by it being trapped in taxable is that if I instead converted the funds from employer sponsored to Roth IRA (the largest bucket is already Roth in the employer sponsored) then I would be able to sell things in my taxable (realize ltcg, which is low tax rate) and buy those same things within the roth ira. Itās not possible to just buy individual stocks or options within the employer sponsored plan.
I cant even access funds from the tiaa account through plan loans. They donāt allow any loans against the (100% vested) employer contributions contract. And they also donāt allow any loans against the Roth portion of the employee contributions contract. They only allow loans vs traditional employee elective contribution funds, which is ~3% of the account.
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Sorry to hear this. Hope you find another job that makes you happy soon.
I mean it was me that fired the job soā¦
Weird middle ground. If I had around twice as many assets I wouldnāt āneedā any more income.
Not to say I would do nothing.
Well, or really iād probably have enough to sustain my current spendthrift levels indefinitely.
But yeah, lots of possibilities. Should be fun figuring out what I want to do. Currently donāt know if Iām just going to end ācareerā and do completely different things.
Bender, didnāt you talk about wanting to live in Colorado or somewhere else sometime ago?
Go for itā¦ Youāll never have a better chanceā¦
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So you canāt claim unemployment?
As @Pattyb53 mentioned, this is your perfect time to relocate to where you want to be. The job is no longer locking you your current locale.
No. Yes, I should have quit last year instead. /shrug
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2021 Q3, total returns
| ticker | type | 2021 Q3 |
|---|---|---|
| BTC | bitcoin | +25% |
| CPI | inflation | +2% |
| QQQ | tech | +1% |
| JNK | junk bonds | +1% |
| SPY | large caps | +1% |
| BND | bonds | +0% |
| USD | cash | +0% |
| EFA | foreign (developed) | -1% |
| GLD | gold | -1% |
| IWM | small caps | -4% |
| EEM | foreign (emerging) | -9% |
Turns out it was a pretty boring quarter, but if youāre not going all in on crypto, you did well to avoid losses and being up more than a little was a win. It was a good quarter over here for stock trading, but Iām not trying to compete with the crypto bulls.
For reference, even tho Q2 was a big loss for crypto (followed by this quarterās smaller recovery), Bitcoin is still up about 50% YTD.
All that said, itās worth mentioning that implicitly benchmarking this list to USD +0% might not be exactly what you want. Hereās the inflation numbers YTD, running annually about 5% (about 1.7% for Q3), so all the real returns are solidly negative ex crypto.
US Inflation Rate (annualized monthly rate I think)
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf (recent month CPI changes)
I donāt wade into this thread much in the same way that a guy who always bets on black right before red hits shouldnāt hang out on roulette forums, but since I did just make a short term play, I figured Iād post here.
Bought 400 shares on 10/12 @ $24.50 when I thought it was as low as it would go (HA!). Since it went even lower today on the āgood newsā that only 293,000 people filed for unemployment, I bought another 360 shares at $23.32.
For the past 6 months, VXX has jumped up on the 18th, 19th, or 20th of the month. Hoping to unload next week for a quick payday. If it doesnāt jump next week, Iāll just hold until the next time something stupid happens and volatility jumps again.
Trumpās media / brand / social media venture is going to have its own stock and go public via a SPAC merger. It already got a Yuuge reception with the stock up 50% and the traded warrants up 10x. Took a few DWACWās as a flier that a lotta Brandon fans putting a little of their money into this could easily create a GameStop type situation.
Hereās their website that Google isnāt making it easy to find. Good political move too - mainstream media will have a harder time censoring discussion of a hot moving stock.
Bump for the updated charts above, but even those donāt show the full move. The common is $70 and the warrants $20+ in the after hours. This was a good description of the situation -
My guess is that the price of Trump SPAC stock will not, for instance, be much affected by its earnings announcements, unless Trump himself does the earnings calls in which case it will go up no matter what he says. My guess is that the stock will not be particularly correlated with the stocks of other media or technology companies. My guess is that the stock will go up when Trump is on television, or if he announces that heās running for president again. My guess is that if something bad happens to Trump ā if heās sued or arrested or banned by a new tech company or some new scandal comes out ā then that will also make the stock go up, to own the libs or whatever. My guess is that each day that goes by without Trump news, the stock will go down a bit. My guess is that the stock is essentially a bet on Trumpās personal newsiness, on Trump-news volatility.
TSLA on Muskās latest Twitter and why heāll be selling some of his stock soon,
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My plan I posted about on Oct 14 was looking dumb and dumber as time went on with VXX going all the way below $20 the first week of November. Until today.
I wasnāt looking at the market at all today, saw xertyās post in the other thread and checked. Fortunately or unfortunately (weāll see what the future holds), I couldnāt close out my position with that nice little profit because the markets closed early today. Weāll see what happens Monday. Might close out all the way, or might ride it out a little longer if things still look bleak. As of right now, Iām just happy to be above water again on a risk I took that was looking like a bad move with probably too much of my money out there than I should be playing with.
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