• mad_lentil@lemmy.caEnglish
    0·
    6 days ago

    Basically regular people are doing real shit like growing corn and mining and fixing computers and all that, and then you’ve got this like teeming mat of busy busy parasites that lays over everyone and figured out they could generate money by playing games loaning, withholding, or just guessing what the regular people will do. Then you’ve got another layer of parasites over that one who do the same thing but just with the lower parasites, and they’re even more useless and richer than any of the others combined.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      7 days ago

      It’s not gambling for the House, because the odds are already stacked in your favor.

      It’s not gambling for the state, because this is guaranteed tax revenue and campaign contributions, off the backs of people who are more than willing to feed the beast.

      It’s not gambling for the players, either. In the end, they always go to zero.

  • Corvid_Moon@lemmy.ca
    0·
    7 days ago

    Speaking of which, I’ve always been curious to try “investing in stocks”, but have no idea how. Does anyone have tips on starting?

    • 5318008@lemmy.ml
      0·
      7 days ago

      This is the best, most consistent strategy for the past 50+ years:

      Step 1: Open an account. If you have a 401k, you already have a retirement account, probably with Fidelity. If you don’t have a 401k, Fidelity is still a fine choice. You could also choose Schwab or Vanguard. Don’t overthink it, though, because it doesn’t really matter.

      Step 2: Put everything into $VOO.* Every time you get a paycheck, put some of it into your account and buy more $VOO.

      Step 3: Don’t touch it. Don’t. I know you want to. I know you want to look at that number. Don’t. Don’t do it. I know you heard about trading options somewhere and you saw the posts of people who turned $10k into $10 million. That’s not going to happen. Don’t touch the money. Leave it alone.

      Step 4: When you have enough money to live comfortably for the rest of your life, start selling it to buy bonds.

      *Everything else you do might get more money, but it is worse on average. For example, you might be feeling smart, and decide that all these big tech stocks are overvalued. So you’ll buy $RWL instead. That might get more money, but it probably won’t. If you insist on doing something fancy, at least put most of your money in $VOO.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        Put everything into $VOO.* Every time you get a paycheck, put some of it into your account and buy more $VOO.

        VGT has been beating VOO for almost it’s entire existence. Higher volitility, but better long term results.

        Everything else you do might get more money, but it is worse on average

        That’s a real YMMV situation. If you want an easy way to guarantee around 10% ROI on your savings every year, no thinking required, VOO is great (VGT is marginally better, but not an enormous difference).

        If you get into the weeds, actually learn what you’re investing in, find equities that are undervalued, and stay well diversified, you can do better than the market more often than not.

        The big caveat is most people don’t know how to value equities. It’s difficult, complicated, it can carry a lot of risk, and it can be very stressful.

        The other caveat is, you won’t do that much better. So if you aren’t working an eight figure+ fund, the difference between 10% ROI and 11% ROI won’t be worth the leg work.

        • 5318008@lemmy.ml
          0·
          6 days ago

          If [things], you can do better than the market more often than not.

          This is not true for 90+% of people who attempt it.

          If you were born with an extra luck-bone, go for it. If not, $VOO and turning your brain off is a superior strategy.

          …VGT…

          I said 50+ years.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
            0·
            6 days ago

            This is not true for 90+% of people who attempt it.

            I would be curious to see your homework on that one. It sounds like a number you pulled from the air

    • historicaldocuments@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 days ago

      I keep writing and deleting this same post a lot, because there’re so many facets to it, but I swear it’s not really that complicated once you understand how much of it is about tax efficiency. It turns out that answering the question you asked is the best place to start: “tips on starting.”

      Tips:

      • Pick a brokerage that isn’t Robinhood. Fidelity, Charles Schwab, and Vanguard are big names with zero trading fees; Schwab probably has the best user interface since they got ThinkOrSwim when they bought TD Ameritrade.
      • Get comfortable with the idea that you’ll want to do direct bank ACH transfers to your accounts with the brokerage. You should at least have a normal brokerage account that doesn’t have tax advantages or rules, and a Roth IRA.
      • Learn about Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). You can buy shares of $VOO (if I use a dollar sign it means it’s a stock “ticker symbol”) and get a slice of the entire S&P 500. A share of $VT buys a slice of (one of Vanguard’s interpretations of) the entire world market. You can be diversified with just one fund.
      • Find good websites to research. Bogleheads is a good one that I like. $RDDT had several subreddits that looked at the topic from all different aspects, but now that’s just another thing they’ve stolen from the world.1
      • Ask questions if you have them and find good websites to research. Most of the buy-it-and-hold crowd’s advice won’t have changed at all across decades (that strategy is where you buy the stock, and then hold it), but search engines tend to push newer websites, and it’s kind of pointless to set up a new website that just always says to buy and hold.



      Some links:



      [1] Since we know they do marketing campaigns that will push certain topics/movies/whatever if they’re paid to, AND we know they have carte blanche with shadow bans/hiding posts/etc, has anyone done any analysis to see if they’re being paid to push certain stocks in whatever tattered remains are left over from their investing forums? I guess you’d have to pay them for access to scan their comments now with any kind of speed, and I’ll also guess you wouldn’t be able to buy a product from them that would prove they’re doing it.

    • SippyCup@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 days ago

      Roth IRA. put 10% in each paycheck.

      If you’re instead looking to trade stocks like Pokemon cards, there are plenty of apps that let you do that. And just like Pokemon cards, you’ll put more in than you’ll ever take out if you trade like that.

      Buy the dip, hold. You’ll either eventually come out ahead or the company you bought will dissolve.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        0·
        7 days ago

        Buy the dip, hold.

        Timing the market is always a bad idea. You’re routinely better off fully invested than with cash on the side waiting for the dip.

      • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        7 days ago

        As long as he isn’t turning them over in trades, or overweighting his purchases, he can pick stocks like Pokémon cards and do fine. Plenty of buy and hold investors beat the indexes and the ones that don’t usually aren’t that far behind.

    • Hiplobbe@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 days ago
      1. Don’t seek advice on a meme forum
      2. Use common sense, a company that has had profits for the last 5 years is probably a good investment.
      3. Seek information online, with the biggest grain of salt imagineable. If an investment bro or comment online seem manic or urgent, it is a bad investment. Those are the people you are suppose to be profiting from.
  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    7 days ago

    Absolutely not a stunning revelation. Stock brokers and others in the industry have always used betting terminology pretty openly.

  • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
    0·
    7 days ago

    I was watching the World Series last night and made a comment in a chat about how ads and companies these days in the US are just one grift after another. Seriously, the ads were:

    • AI (multiple companies)
    • Medications that are borderline poison but somehow get approved anyway
    • Kalshi and other betting platforms

    The US creates problems for its citizens and then finds ways to sell them the cure. All of this has accelerated over the years and it’s just going to get worse.

    • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 days ago

      Spouse was just watching something on some free streaming app and all the ads are ai generated and scams aimed at old people. This one was about some fake life insurance claims when it flashes a 1-2 second picture of this at the end where it tells you if you call they will add your information to their databases and sell it and you choose to void your rights and take yourself off the national do not call list…

      • orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts
        0·
        7 days ago

        My mom got hit with this kind of shit. It’s the reason she ended up with 10 car warranties. I overheard her answer the phone one day while I was at her house and it was the parasite warranty company again. I ripped that motherfucker a new one. Made him tell me exactly how many warranties he can see that she had prior, made him cancel them all while I was on the phone, all with the threat of legal recourse. After all of that, I told him to get a real job and to stop fucking over the elderly.

        A country that allows this, knows exactly what it’s doing. Just like the US government knew what it was doing when it repealed gambling regulations in 2018.

    • Gordon Calhoun@lemmy.world
      0·
      7 days ago

      Yes, in the manufacturing of the cartridge, but once it’s made, it doesn’t need an atmosphere containing oxygen to activate. The explosive charge behind the peojectile is ready to go and just waiting for prime time.

      • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
        0·
        7 days ago

        Yeah, much like if you take an m80 or many other fireworks and throw it in a lake it’ll still explode, because the fuel the wick needs to stay lit is built in.

        • Gordon Calhoun@lemmy.world
          0·
          7 days ago

          Newton’s third law dictates there must be recoil. The momentum of the projectile and gasses exiting the end of the barrel must be exactly balanced by the force of holder’s hand multiplied by the time it takes to arrest all motion of the recoiling firearm.

          Momentum = definite integral of force as a function of time multiplied by the duration of time whete momentum and force are both specific to an equivalent directional vector.

          Could also use an energy analysis. The total kinetic energy of the projectile and exiting gasses will equal the handheld force multiplied by the distance the gun moves backward - more movement backward, less average force…in the limiting case of minimal movement backward, the force will be extremely high and short-lived.

  • NovaVeles@lemmy.world
    0·
    7 days ago

    It is gambling attached to a ponzi scheme. It kind of works so long as growth can keep up, but if it ever stops and reverses for any reason…

    Unrelated, how are sea surface temperatures going nowadays?

  • ElChinchilla@lemmy.world
    0·
    8 days ago

    I love shitting on the markets as much as the next person, but saying the Nasdaq is like polymarket is deliberately flippant.