Jestersix

Stocking up before tariff hit

Turkeysammich said:
If you had liquid cash. This is where millionaires are made in the market. Warren Buffett says. When it rains , don’t go outside with a thimble , go outside with a bucket.
Gotta look at it as a excellent buying opportunity
Click to expand...
Who realistically keeps hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars sitting around in liquid cash waiting for a market dip? Alternatively, who is going to go and sell off a house or other large capital value item, and be able to find a buyer right now, so that they can similarly buy the dip?

Berkswhire Hathaway may. A giant bank or fund may. I really doubt any non-hundreds of millionaires or giant companies are sitting around with liquid assets that they can use to do that. A normal individual can't sell off their 401k to get cash to then buy more stocks for their 401k. They maybe can sell off all their bond funds and switch it all to stocks, but if that goes sideways they're screwed too.

Not meaning that combative to your specific point, but I don't see how realistically laymen or even quite rich people can realistically do something to make money on a dip like this. Even fiscally prudent people aren't going to be able to do that, because if they were prudent they wouldn't have cash sitting around not gaining money.

The more realistic plan seems to be what @JVU is saying, and recalculate how your ability to spend is jacked for a long time, and think through ways to cut costs.
 
richiev said:
Who realistically keeps hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars sitting around in liquid cash waiting for a market dip? Alternatively, who is going to go and sell off a house or other large capital value item, and be able to find a buyer right now, so that they can similarly buy the dip?

Berkswhire Hathaway may. A giant bank or fund may. I really doubt any non-hundreds of millionaires or giant companies are sitting around with liquid assets that they can use to do that. A normal individual can't sell off their 401k to get cash to then buy more stocks for their 401k. They maybe can sell off all their bond funds and switch it all to stocks, but if that goes sideways they're screwed too.

Not meaning that combative to your specific point, but I don't see how realistically laymen or even quite rich people can realistically do something to make money on a dip like this. Even fiscally prudent people aren't going to be able to do that, because if they were prudent they wouldn't have cash sitting around not gaining money.

The more realistic plan seems to be what @JVU is saying, and recalculate how your ability to spend is jacked for a long time, and think through ways to cut costs.
Click to expand...
Well when I was working. I would dca a specific amount every week. Take 10% of earnings and keep it in liquid cash. Max all profit shares possible. I learned to live poor. I also learned that in every year. There is 2-3 market dips. So yeah. I had monies for those dips. And it’s the long game. We are not talking 100,000 of thousands. But it turns into that over time.
 
Turkeysammich said:
Well when I was working. I would dca a specific amount every week. Take 10% of earnings and keep it in liquid cash. Max all profit shares possible. I learned to live poor. I also learned that in every year. There is 2-3 market dips. So yeah. I had monies for those dips. And it’s the long game. We are not talking 100,000 of thousands. But it turns into that over time.
Click to expand...
This is what I do. Keep a small percentage of your 401k as cash (e.g. 401k matching) or rebalance assets (sell high) if they get away from the ideal ratios you're trying to keep during uncertain times. Stay away from high expense ratio funds and direct your own stock purchases. Go for high dividend companies and auto reinvest if you're risk averse or closer to retirement. It all adds up bit by bit. No market stays in a bull cycle forever and like Will said, how you react when everyone panics is how you win.

I typically put my whole pre tax bonus annually into my brokerage account and because of this, I had cash to buy into heavily discounted stocks on Friday. I always assume that my bonus doesn't exist and live frugally as if I'm not going to see that money. Heck even in 2009 when I was a broke grad student, I put a few hundred I had from selling corals and magic cards on eBay into massively low blue chip stocks that paid off big a few years later and helped with my house down payment.
 
IMG_5850.jpeg


I have a mixed portfolio of Toilet paper and gasoline in trash bags in the trunk of my car
 
Last edited:
This is quickly going OT, but kinda relevant cause maybe people could be diversifying buy buying commodities like salt :)?

RE dollar-cost-averaging, that is a reasonable/interesting strategy, but for it affecting this it's less about incrementally buying stocks and more a statement of "try and actively time the market". DCA over the long-term doesn't majorly change risk profiles, because if you're holding a stock for multiple years, whether you buy $10k today or $1k across 10 weeks isn't affecting years out.

Therefore the real argument being made here is make money by being an active trader trying to time the market in the short-term. Assuming that's not saying become a day-trader which is an awful idea :), that's a trade-off of a risk you lose money by holding cash instead of gaining stocks (was the case for a long time) vs the risk that you can't buy a dip (which is the current case). I can understand that, though I would imagine a vast majority of folks are going to do worse by being active traders.

All that being said though, if someone has been saving for 15 years, maxing out a 401k, having > $300k in it, the gain of buying $5k worth of stock at a discount is going to not help that much in all that's going on.
 
Last edited:
Turkeysammich said:
If you had liquid cash. This is where millionaires are made in the market. Warren Buffett says. When it rains , don’t go outside with a thimble , go outside with a bucket.
Gotta look at it as a excellent buying opportunity
Click to expand...
Exactly, made almost 3000% on Friday with 4/4 $510 SPY puts last week. I went in aggressively on Monday (3/31) but gotdamn what a payday on Friday. Not gonna lie though, I was pooping my pants all week on what could have been a massive loss if he didn’t hold to it, postponed/waffled… he does that a lot. And thank you China for flipping him the bird and making it even worse (well, better for me) lol. I cashed out nearly 60% of my 401k last month (the tax and penalty are nothing compared to how much I would have lost leaving it there), put a chunk of that in treasury bonds and am keeping the rest liquid.

The market hast lost almost $10 TRILLION since he took office. Things are not looking up, nor good. Futures opened super low yesterday, expecting the drop to continue as foreign trade news trickles in over the next days/weeks/months.

I will continue to short the market, or buy long term calls when the time comes, but the bottom is definitely not in and will continue to drop as the rest of the globe bands together in trade talks for the big game while the US sits on the sidelines. The US is a consumer, not a producer (anymore), and we have finite resources. We need them, they don’t need us nearly as much as he thinks.

We just handed the baton to China to become the global leader. China can basically use their entire export market as a loss leader (selling at a loss to lock in global trade and market share) potentially boxing out the US by creating long term trade relationships with our (former?) allies and trade partners.

I don't think 90% of Americans are really grasping this yet.

Companies are already beginning to pause export to the US (Jaguar Land Rover, and rumors of BMW and Mercedes following suit) - and China has halted export of rare earth minerals to the West "China produces around 90% of the world's rare earths, a group of 17 elements used across the defense, electric vehicle, energy and electronics industries. The United States has only one rare earths mine and most of its supply comes from China."

Not good for us, what's the point of building a factory in the states if you can't even get the necessary raw materials? Meanwhile the EU is curtailing (and now considering tighter restrictions and limitations) on Google, MSFT (who had been planning on spending billions building global data centers), Amazon/AWS, Apple, etc... in lieu of promoting non-US based tech (who more align with their privacy and anti-competitive laws to top it off).

And while it all burns Dear Leader is golfing and insisting on a 4 mile long military parade for his birthday.



(I initially started as an econ major and have friends who work for two different large, global financial organizations who tell me what they legally can, so am very tapped in to this)

/rant
 
yosemiteclimber said:
Exactly, made almost 3000% on Friday with 4/4 $510 SPY puts last week. I went in aggressively on Monday (3/31) but gotdamn what a payday on Friday. Not gonna lie though, I was pooping my pants all week on what could have been a massive loss if he didn’t hold to it, postponed/waffled… he does that a lot. And thank you China for flipping him the bird and making it even worse (well, better for me) lol. I cashed out nearly 60% of my 401k last month (the tax and penalty are nothing compared to how much I would have lost leaving it there), put a chunk of that in treasury bonds and am keeping the rest liquid.

The market hast lost almost $10 TRILLION since he took office. Things are not looking up, nor good. Futures opened super low yesterday, expecting the drop to continue as foreign trade news trickles in over the next days/weeks/months.

I will continue to short the market, or buy long term calls when the time comes, but the bottom is definitely not in and will continue to drop as the rest of the globe bands together in trade talks for the big game while the US sits on the sidelines. The US is a consumer, not a producer (anymore), and we have finite resources. We need them, they don’t need us nearly as much as he thinks.

We just handed the baton to China to become the global leader. China can basically use their entire export market as a loss leader (selling at a loss to lock in global trade and market share) potentially boxing out the US by creating long term trade relationships with our (former?) allies and trade partners.

I don't think 90% of Americans are really grasping this yet.

Companies are already beginning to pause export to the US (Jaguar Land Rover, and rumors of BMW and Mercedes following suit) - and China has halted export of rare earth minerals to the West "China produces around 90% of the world's rare earths, a group of 17 elements used across the defense, electric vehicle, energy and electronics industries. The United States has only one rare earths mine and most of its supply comes from China."

Not good for us, what's the point of building a factory in the states if you can't even get the necessary raw materials? Meanwhile the EU is curtailing (and now considering tighter restrictions and limitations) on Google, MSFT (who had been planning on spending billions building global data centers), Amazon/AWS, Apple, etc... in lieu of promoting non-US based tech (who more align with their privacy and anti-competitive laws to top it off).

And while it all burns Dear Leader is golfing and insisting on a 4 mile long military parade for his birthday.



(I initially started as an econ major and have friends who work for two different large, global financial organizations who tell me what they legally can, so am very tapped in to this)

/rant
Click to expand...
Emphasizing that last sentence: a person who has deep experience and ties into trading and markets is doing advanced and high risk (and therefore potentially high reward or major wipe out) trading techniques. Please everyone else don't go and research opens and shorts and turn a crappy couple weeks into a completely empty retirement account with a robin hood account.

I'm calling that out so this doesn't turn into r/wallstreetbets

(context: I worked in a finance tech company back in the day and learned enough to know I and most people have no business playing the market. Just trying to make sure someone feeling upset doesn't make decisions that may majorly burn them)

Edit: also if people want even more people to be angry at, wait until you see how many high frequency trading firms are making a killing while everyone else loses their shirt (2nd disclaimer that I never worked at one, but have a lot of friends in that space from when I lived in Chicago)
 
yosemiteclimber said:
Exactly, made almost 3000% on Friday with 4/4 $510 SPY puts last week. I went in aggressively on Monday (3/31) but gotdamn what a payday on Friday. Not gonna lie though, I was pooping my pants all week on what could have been a massive loss if he didn’t hold to it, postponed/waffled… he does that a lot. And thank you China for flipping him the bird and making it even worse (well, better for me) lol. I cashed out nearly 60% of my 401k last month (the tax and penalty are nothing compared to how much I would have lost leaving it there), put a chunk of that in treasury bonds and am keeping the rest liquid.

The market hast lost almost $10 TRILLION since he took office. Things are not looking up, nor good. Futures opened super low yesterday, expecting the drop to continue as foreign trade news trickles in over the next days/weeks/months.

I will continue to short the market, or buy long term calls when the time comes, but the bottom is definitely not in and will continue to drop as the rest of the globe bands together in trade talks for the big game while the US sits on the sidelines. The US is a consumer, not a producer (anymore), and we have finite resources. We need them, they don’t need us nearly as much as he thinks.

We just handed the baton to China to become the global leader. China can basically use their entire export market as a loss leader (selling at a loss to lock in global trade and market share) potentially boxing out the US by creating long term trade relationships with our (former?) allies and trade partners.

I don't think 90% of Americans are really grasping this yet.

Companies are already beginning to pause export to the US (Jaguar Land Rover, and rumors of BMW and Mercedes following suit) - and China has halted export of rare earth minerals to the West "China produces around 90% of the world's rare earths, a group of 17 elements used across the defense, electric vehicle, energy and electronics industries. The United States has only one rare earths mine and most of its supply comes from China."

Not good for us, what's the point of building a factory in the states if you can't even get the necessary raw materials? Meanwhile the EU is curtailing (and now considering tighter restrictions and limitations) on Google, MSFT (who had been planning on spending billions building global data centers), Amazon/AWS, Apple, etc... in lieu of promoting non-US based tech (who more align with their privacy and anti-competitive laws to top it off).

And while it all burns Dear Leader is golfing and insisting on a 4 mile long military parade for his birthday.



(I initially started as an econ major and have friends who work for two different large, global financial organizations who tell me what they legally can, so am very tapped in to this)

/rant
Click to expand...
That’s how my brother moves with options. He’s been trying to teach me over the years. Big money moves. Just gotta make sure you put that sell order in just in case it shats the bed.
I’ve been happy with my small moves over the years. It has done me well.
 
Turkeysammich said:
Just gotta make sure you put that sell order in just in case it shats the bed.
Click to expand...
For sure - 90% of the time I have stop loss in place and a sell at my price target, but it's so choppy and unpredictable right now a quick dip that recovers a few minutes late could cost you a LOT. When it's like this I just set alerts, watch the charts, and have my window open and ready to execute.
 
sfsuphysics said:
The Bidet (say it with a French accent) was invented by the Japanese???

I mean don't get me wrong, they made it better sure, but just like the US made Pizza better than the Italians, I'm not about to say we invented it :lol:
Click to expand...
US made Pizza better than the Italians??? This thread gets more and more ‘interesting’.....
 
Sorry for starting the ranting about stocks. I agree with Will and others that if you are super savvy you can make (or lose) a ton of money with big bets when the market is volatile. I have friends and a close family member deep in that world and they are loving it. I’m not in that world. And trying to be smarter and better positioned in it than the pros when I already have a day job seems foolhardy at best. For me, I just see my portfolio, which I was pretty happy with before the current administration, shrinking every day that the orange guy talks. There are a lot of smart people in the finance world and leading other governments, but they aren’t the ones calling the shots right now. I do want to retire at some point with a cushion but now it seems indefinitely far off. Like what is the point of retirement planning if the value of the portfolio swings around wildly every time one egomaniac is rude to another or bends the knee or doesn’t or whatever.

My original point was just that this is what’s on my mind relative to the tariffs, not whether or not my next box of salt will cost an extra $10 or $20.

It’s all very frustrating.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top