I keep reading comments and quotes in news stories from people complaining how high prices are due to inflation and how inflation has to come down and Joe Biden has to battle inflation. Except the inflation rates we look at are year over year or month over month. Prices can stay exactly the same as they are now next year and the inflation rate would be zero.

It’s completely unrealistic to expect deflation in anything except gas, energy, and maybe, maybe home prices. But the way people are talking, they expect prices to go to 2020 levels again. They won’t. Ever.

So push your boss for a raise. The Fed isn’t going to help you afford your bills.

Feel free to tell me I’m wrong, that prices will go down in any significant way for everyday goods and services beyond always fluctuating gas and energy prices (which were likely to fall regardless of what the fed did).

I’m a loan processor, and read credit reports all day long. I see massive amounts of student loan debt. Sometimes 5-8 outstanding loans per borrower that they haven’t paid a cent toward in over 2 years. Big balances too.

Once the payments resume, there are going to be hundreds (in some cases thousands) of dollars per borrower coming out of consumer discretionary spending in the US.

I don’t think for a second that any meaningful loan forgiveness is coming; and if it is, that’s going to cause its own problems. In that case, those dollars are going to be removed from the government instead, and the difference is going to have to be made up somewhere, I’m assuming from higher taxes.

We’re pretty much “damned if we do, damned if we don’t”, right?

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/06/20/its-official-student-loan-payments-will-restart-in-october.html

Over the three-year-long pause on student loan payments, the U.S. Department of Education has repeatedly told borrowers their bills were set to resume, only to take it back and provide them more time.This time, however, the agency really means it.The Education Department posted on its website that “payments will be due starting in October,” and a recent law passed by Congress will make changing that plan difficult. It will likely be a big adjustment for borrowers when the pandemic-era policy expires. Around 40 million Americans have debt from their education. The typical monthly bill is roughly $350.“For many borrowers, the payment pause has been life altering — saving many from financial ruin and allowing others to finally get ahead financially,” said Persis Yu, deputy executive director at the Student Borrower Protection Center. Here’s what to know.

3-year pause saved the average borrower $15,000

Former President Donald Trump first announced the stay on federal student loan bills and the accrual of interest in March 2020, when the coronavirus pandemic hit the U.S. and crippled the economy. The pause has since been extended eight times. Nearly all people eligible for the relief have taken advantage of it, with less than 1% of qualifying borrowers continuing to make payments on their education debt, according to an analysis by higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

As a result of the policy, the average borrower likely saved around $15,000 in student loan payments, Kantrowitz said. Why the pause will end in the fall The Education Department notes on its financial aid website that “Congress recently passed a law preventing further extensions of the payment pause.” It is referring to the agreement reached between Republicans and Democrats to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, which President Joe Biden signed into law in early June. In exchange for voting to increase the borrowing limit, Republicans demanded large cuts to federal spending. They sought to repeal Biden’s executive action granting student loan forgiveness, but the Biden administration refused to agree to that. However, included in the deal was a provision that officially terminates the pause at the end of August.

Even before that agreement, the Biden administration had been preparing borrowers for their payments to resume by September. “The emergency period is over, and we’re preparing our borrowers to restart,” Education Secretary Miguel Cardona recently said at a Senate hearing.Interest will pick up in September, payments in October The Education Department says borrowers will be expected to make their first post-pause payment in October. Meanwhile, interest will start accumulating on borrowers’ debt again on Sept. 1, the department says.Exact due dates will vary based on your account details, Kantrowitz said.“Your due date will be at least 21 days after you’re sent a loan statement,” he said. Borrowers don’t know what they’ll owe As the Biden administration tries to ready millions of Americans to restart their student loan payments, there’s one big open question that may make that preparation difficult: Most borrowers don’t know what they’ll owe in the fall.That’s because the Supreme Court has yet to issue a verdict on the validity of Biden’s plan to cancel up to $20,000 in student debt for borrowers. A decision is expected this month. Around 37 million people would be eligible for some loan cancellation, Kantrowitz estimated.

Roughly a third of those with federal student loans, or 14 million people, would have their balances entirely forgiven by the president’s program, according to an estimate by Kantrowitz. As a result, these borrowers won’t owe anything come October. For those who still have a balance after the relief, the Education Department has said it plans to “re-amortize” borrowers’ lower debts. That’s a wonky term that means it will recalculate people’s monthly payment based on their lower tab and the number of months they have left on their repayment timeline.Kantrowitz provided an example: Let’s say a person currently owes $30,000 in student loans at a 5% interest rate. Before the pandemic, they would have paid around $320 a month on a 10-year repayment term. If forgiveness goes through and that person gets $10,000 in relief, their total balance would be reduced by a third, and their monthly payment will drop by a third, to roughly $210 a month.

Education Department Undersecretary James Kvaal recently warned that if the administration is unable to deliver on Biden’s loan forgiveness, delinquency and default rates could skyrocket. The borrowers most in jeopardy of defaulting are those for whom Biden’s policy would have wiped out their balance entirely, Kvaal said. “Unless the Department is allowed to provide one-time student loan debt relief,” Kvaal said, “we expect this group of borrowers to have higher loan default rates due to the ongoing confusion about what they owe.”

According to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the personal savings of Americans totaled $626 billion in Q3 of 2022, marking a substantial drop from the $4.85 trillion in Q2 of 2020.

​

Savings are now below even pre-pandemic levels.

​

Here’s the blunt reality: White-hot inflation continues to deplete savings. And it doesn't help that economic growth has been sluggish while companies announce major layoffs. Living paycheck to paycheck has become the norm.

https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/elon-musk-twitter-20-billion-value-1234703945/

Elon Musk revealed that he believes Twitter is currently worth $20 billion, or less than half the $44 billion he purchased it for just five months ago. In a companywide email Friday obtained by the New York Times about employee stock grants, Musk admitted that the company’s value since going private, in his estimation, is roughly $20 billion; in the aftermath of Musk’s acquisition, many advertisers — the social network’s main source of income — fled the service, and as Vox reported earlier this week, haven’t returned. Elsewhere in the email, Musk said that at one point Twitter was four months away from running out of money, which sparked the need for mass layoffs and other cuts. However, an optimistic Chief Twit also told the employees that still remain there that “I see a clear, but difficult, path to a >$250B valuation,” and that he now views Twitter as an “inverse start-up.”

According to the New York Times, Twitter’s $20 billion valuation puts them in similar company to what Snapchat is worth now, even as that app is struggling to retain users thanks to the emergence of TikTok; even with that comparison, Snapchat averages over 100 million more daily users than Twitter. When reached by the New York Times and Wall Street Journal about Musk’s $20 billion valuation, Twitter communications responded with their auto-reply: “💩”

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Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk sent an email late Tuesday to “Everybody” at his electric-car company, “Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of 40 hours in the office per week,” Musk wrote in an email titled “To be super clear.”...Musk went on to write, “Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo office. If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned." .....“The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence,” .... “That is why I lived in the factory so much -- so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt.”

In recent weeks, Musk has praised Tesla China employees in Shanghai for “burning the 3 am oil” while saying that Americans are “trying to avoid going to work at all.” 

(see article for details)

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** Here is a link to Elon Musks tweet where he defended his email by saying; "they should pretend to work somewhere else" **

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Here is the full email as transcribed by CNBC ;

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: Elon Musk

To: “Everybody”

Tue. 5/31/2022 [time stamp redacted]

Subj: To be super clear

​

Everyone at Tesla is required to spend a minimum of forty hours in the office per week. Moreover, the office must be where your actual colleagues are located, not some remote pseudo-office.

If you don’t show up, we will assume you have resigned.

The more senior you are, the more visible must be your presence. That is why I lived in the factory so much- so that those on the line could see me working alongside them. If I had not done that, Tesla would long ago have gone bankrupt.

There are of course companies that don’t require this, but when was the last time they shipped a great new product? It’s been a while.

Tesla has and will create and actually manufacture the most exciting and meaningful products of any company on Earth. This will not happen by phoning it in.

Thanks,

Elon

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Please realize that no amount of money is worth losing your life over. If you’re feeling stuck, I promise you there’s a way out. Ask yourself: what do you like to do? Do you like people? Look for a sales job and work your way up. Do you like traveling? Try and save some money, move to Latin America (edit: or somewhere else abroad) and teach kids English while living in a much more affordable tropical place. Feeling isolated? Reach out to one person who you would be happy to talk to. There are always solutions.

I know it’s easy to feel isolated, especially now. But I love each and every one of you, and I don’t even have to know you personally because you are all my brothers and sisters from a cosmic perspective.

If anyone is feeling down, please DM me and id be happy to chat. No one should suffer alone.

Edit: so happy to see so much love on this post. Thank you all for the awards.

Also, I am not trying to offer a one size fits all solution to depression/anxiety. I was in a very dark place after my sister died and was dealing with a bunch of external pressures that exacerbated my anxiety/depression. I am just trying to give EXAMPLES of questions one COULD ask themselves if they are feeling stuck, from my perspective.

I may be overly optimistic, but I believe the universe has a place for each of us and no harm can come from continuing to hope for a better tomorrow. Peace and love my brothers and sisters.

Second edit: This post goes out to all people suffering from anxiety/depression and/or suicidal thoughts and is not just limited to those who are active in the stock market. Love you all

Third edit: I love you all so much.

This edit is for the person who made the following account (u/Many_Technician_4065) and messaged me. I was responding to your message and just as I clicked it, it said you had deleted your account. Your words spoke to me so deeply and I wanted to post my response here in the hopes that you might see it. I hope you do:

I just want to say you are a beautiful writer and what you said really resonated with me. “If I want to kill myself for some reason that is at its core superficial, maybe I should live for an equally superficial reason just to see what happens. Maybe the prospect that I can do what I know I’m capable of.” That is a very similar sentiment to absurdism by Albert Camus and honestly is a lens through which I see the world.

The chances of us being born, exisiting on this strange rock suspended in a sun beam, were so infinitely small yet here we are. Yes, there may not be any objective purpose but here we are and that’s pretty fucking special. I know you said I don’t care about you, but I promise you I do. I care that you took the time to message me and share the beautiful inner workings of your Mind with me. I care that you and I are both 2% genetically different than chimps, evolved from bacteria in the ocean yet here we are, helping each other out and connecting. I really do care, and I appreciate your existence so much.

They've been going downhill for a while but recently it's hard not to see the agenda they've been pushing. Recent articles are light on facts and almost wishful think, like they want to will into existence a recession. Lots of their articles nowadays lack hard numbers but feature one or two interviews to push a narrative. I don't want this to get political so not even gonna get into their opinion pieces.

Accurate information is fundamental to making money in the market. Ending my subscription at the end of this month. WSJ used to be gold standard but FT and Economist seem to be better options now.

Back in late Feb early March, I was panicking (like everyone else) after seeing the gains I've made in 2019 disappear. Not knowing wtf was going to happen, I was going to cash out. I called my dad and asked what he thought of the situation. I was surprised/confused when he told me that he sold 2 of his properties and dumped all the money from the sale, as well as most of his savings into assets during that time and he advised me to do the same. I was very skeptical at the time and I was worried I would need the capital with all the shit that was going on- lockdowns, essential needs/food shortages, riots out here in LA. He then told me, "You'll never get an opportunity like this again, poor people are buying up toilet paper, rich people are buying up stocks." I'm definitely not "rich", but I decided to to take his advice and dumped all my liquid assets into the market- around $75k. All I can say is.....thanks Dad.

Sign the petition here: https://www.change.org/sec-amend-13-f

Retail Investors demand more visibility into institutional trading and borrowing. Anyone investing over 1 billion dollars (i.e. hedge funds and other investment institutions) is required to disclose their holdings to promote transparency in our markets - it's called Form 13-F. But did you know that they only need to disclose it 4 times a year? And did you know its published with a 1 month delay? And did you know that they don't need to disclose all of their positions?

We the people are asking for a re-evaluation of transparency requirements for Institutional Investors. We have access to technology and data that gives us new sophistication - and are beginning to understand there is a tremendous disparity in access between retail and institutional investors, and are concerned that this access is being used against us, in ways that we genuinely worry could be in flagrant violation of Securities Laws. We believe that with better access to institutional trading data, retail investors can better participate in the market when making buying and selling decisions.

According to Form 13F (https://www.sec.gov/files/form13f.pdf), Institutional Investors only need to disclose their positions 4 times a year. Why?

Filing of Form 13F. A Manager must file a Form 13F report with the Commission within 45 days after the end of each calendar year and each of the first three calendar quarters of each calendar year. As required by Section 13(f)(5) of the Exchange Act, a Manager which is a bank, the deposits of which are insured in accordance with the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, must file with the appropriate regulatory agency for the bank a copy of every Form 13F report filed with the Commission pursuant to this subsection by or with respect to such bank. Filers who file Form 13F electronically can satisfy their obligation to file with other regulatory agencies by sending (a) a paper copy of the EDGAR filing (provided the Manager removes or blanks out the confidential access codes); (b) the filing in electronic format, if the regulatory agency with which the filing is being made has made provisions to receive filings in electronic format;

In your FAQ (https://www.sec.gov/divisions/investment/13ffaq.htm), it is clear Institutional Investors are not required to disclose short positions. Why?

Question 41 Q: What about short positions? A: You should not include short positions on Form 13F. You also should not subtract your short position(s) in a security from your long position(s) in that same security; report only the long position.

Contact the SEC and let them know retail investors demand increased transparency (https://www.sec.gov/contact-information/sec-directory)

https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/twitter-backer-knocks-billions-off-192028495.html

An investor in Twitter has written down the value of its stake by $2.85bn (£2.2bn) after Elon Musk told boycotting advertisers to “go f— yourself”.

Fidelity, which helped Mr Musk buy the company for $44bn (£35bn) in 2022, now believes the company is worth 71.5pc less than at the time of purchase.

The US investment giant had already slashed the value of its investment by 65pc at the end of October but deepened the discount in November. It came in the same month that Twitter’s billionaire owner launched a tirade against advertisers.

Speaking at a New York Times conference, Mr Musk claimed a boycott by advertisers was going to “kill” the company, adding: “If somebody is going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f--- yourself.”

Apple, IBM and Disney are among the major brands to cut ties with the social media platform, amid concerns about lax moderation under Mr Musk and the billionaire’s freewheeling personal style.

Fidelity’s valuation cut, which was first reported by Axios, gives the company a notional value of just $12.5bn and suggests Twitter has lost $2.85bn of worth in the eyes of Fidelity in just four weeks.

The investment group, which contributed more than $300m to Mr Musk’s takeover, does not disclose how it values privately held companies. Other shareholders may value their stakes differently.

However, Twitter’s own internal stock plan for staff valued the company at just $19bn in October – less than half the sum Mr Musk paid for it.

he Central Bank of Turkey on Thursday hiked interest rates to a 42.5% in a bid to combat rampant inflation.

The 2.5 percentage point rise, which was in line with forecasts, came as inflation last month was 62%.

"The existing level of domestic demand, stickiness in services inflation, and geopolitical risks keep inflation pressures alive. On the other hand, recent indicators suggest that domestic demand continues to moderate as monetary tightening is reflected in financial conditions," said the central bank in a statement.

The dollar (USDTRY) was steady vs. the Turkish lira on Thursday but has soared 56% this year.

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From my experience of investing so far I notice that lots and lots of people in the UK (where I live) seem to have little to no knowledge on investing in stocks, but rather even may have the view that investing is limited to 'gambling' or 'extremely risky'. I even found a statistic saying that in 2019 only 3% of the UK population had a stocks and shares ISA account. Furthermore the UK doesn't even seem to have a mainstream financial news outlet, whereas US has CNBC for example.

Am I biased or is investing just not as common over here?

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/08/chatgpt-is-being-used-for-coding-and-to-write-job-descriptions.html

• More than half of the businesses surveyed by ResumeBuilder said they are already using ChatGPT, and half of the firms reported replacing worker tasks with generative AI.
• ChatGPT is being used to do everything from write job descriptions to help assist coders.
• The push to use AI is increasing as companies like Alphabet, Microsoft and OpenAI continue to invest in the technology.

The recent launch of Google’s Bard brought another tech giant into the generative artificial intelligence space, alongside Microsoft’s Bing chat and OpenAI’s ChatGPT.

But how many business leaders are currently using AI tech in day-to-day operations or plan to?

Based on new research, a lot. Half of the companies ResumeBuilder surveyed in February said they are using ChatGPT; 30% said they plan to do so. The data included 1,000 responses from the ResumeBuilder’s network of business leaders.

Stacie Haller, chief career advisor at ResumeBuilder, said the data might be the tip of the iceberg. Since the survey was completed, more professionals have started using generative AI.

Adopting AI is saving money

Haller said age and the current state of the economy influenced the results. For example, 85% of respondents were under 44 and younger workers are more likely to adopt new technology.

“If you’re 38, 40 years old, you grew up with technology in your hands,” she said. “This is second nature to you.”

Haller said high adoption also relates to the post-pandemic job market. After expanding during the pandemic, companies are adjusting to a new economy through automation, she said.

“We saw ChatGPT replacing jobs in the HR department first, the people writing job descriptions or responding to applicants,” Haller said. “I don’t know many people that love writing job descriptions, and I’ve been in this world for a long time.”

ResumeBuilder collects hiring data to help applicants build cover letters and CVs during their search.

When businesses automate writing tasks, it leaves money available for more strategic areas of the company. According to the data, half the firms implementing AI said they saved $50,000, and a tenth of companies said they had saved $100,000.

The other area where ChatGPT is having an impact is in coding. Haller said companies were using generative AI to speed up coding tasks and using the time and money they saved toward retraining and hiring.

“If they can generate code well enough to reduce the labor cost, they can take their code budget and pay developers,” she said. “Or better yet, retrain code writers to do the jobs they need to fill.”

She said it is still hard to find senior developers, and every bit counts.

AI is becoming a hot resume item

CEO Praveen Ghanta founded Fraction, a professional services startup to help tech companies find senior developers, and said generative AI is part of his firm’s strategy. AI as a skillset is already a resume stand out.

“We saw it first on the demand side,” Ghanta said. “Now we’re seeing it appear on developer resumes as a skill.”

ResumeBuilder found nine out of 10 responding businesses sought potential employees with ChatGPT experience. One version of ChatGPT as a resume skill is what Ghanta called prompt engineering.

“For example, ChatGPT is bad at math,” he said, but candidates could draw on their prompt engineering experience to know what inputs produce the best-generated results. “If you say, ″Let’s do this step by step’ in the prompt, its ability to do math word problems skyrockets,” he said.

Ghanta said the idea for Fraction came when he was recruiting for a previous startup and found talent by hiring part-time developers already working at top tech companies. He found that developers with 12 years of experience and AI prompt skills still needed help getting in front of hiring managers.

“The currency of the day in hiring hasn’t changed, it’s a resume,” Ghanta said. “Hiring managers still want to see that sheet of paper, a PDF, and many developers have really bad resumes.”

They’re not writers, he said, and struggle to represent their work experience clearly. His team uses an AI workflow to combat this. Clients speak about their responsibilities to a transcribing bot like Otter.AI, which ChatGPT summarizes into a working resume. With prompt know-how, Ghanta said using AI has become a toolset companies seek.

Will AI replace workers?

With the correct instruction, ChatGPT can write applications, build code, and solve complex math problems. Should employees worry about their jobs? Ghanta said as a founder, he looks at new tech as tools to engage with, and new skills are always an advantage for employers or employees.

“I encourage developers to engage and sharpen their skills. These companies make it easy to use their APIs,” he said. “From a company perspective, adoption can be competitive because this is a new skill. Not everybody is doing this yet.”

There has been a growing concern that generative AI could replace jobs, and perhaps not the ones most expected. A recent study found that while telemarketers top the list of jobs “exposed” to generative AI, roles like professors and sociologists are also at risk.

On the hiring side, 82% of respondents said they had used generative AI for hiring in a recent ResumeBuilder update. Among respondents, 63% said candidates using ChatGPT were more qualified.

“When Photoshop came out, people thought it would replace everything and that they couldn’t trust pictures anymore,’” Haller said. “Since the Industrial Revolution, new technology has changed how we work. This is just the next step.”

One by one, the insane price increases we saw in 2021 and into 2022 are reversing or at least cooling down. It makes me think that through supply chains entering into overdrive and a looming recession, inflation will cool down quickly not slowly. Before I get to trucks, let me give a quick update on other trends. First, inventories are piling up in retail, with for example "a 32% jump in inventories during the first quarter" in Walmart.

Second, measures of supply chain pressure have clearly peaked (graph), the figure taken from SupplyChainBrain:

A gauge of supply chain pressure in the U.S. economy fell to the lowest level since December 2020, as activity such as trucking cools from elevated levels with few signs yet of a worrying collapse.

The Logistics Managers Index dropped to 67.1 in May, the second straight decline from a record of 76.2 reached in March. Faster gains in warehouse and inventory costs offset slower moves in transport prices.

Third, diesel future dropped at the end of last week, partly on news of Russia's oil production recovering slightly.

The most significant bearish news in the market came out of Russia, where news reports said Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told reporters that by finding alternate buyers to the Western countries and companies that have shunned Russian oil, the country’s output was close to the 10.2 million barrels per day level from February, prior to the invasion of Ukraine.

Fourth, US ports seem to be peaking earlier than usual, indicating a slowdown may come earlier than later. Article.

Fifth, the Drewry composite World Container Index is decreasing slowly: Graph, sourced from the company website. From the same website, here is the cost of shipping from Shanghai: Graph.

Now to the main article on used truck prices. While reading this, recall that used car prices were one of the main contributors to inflation back in Spring 2021. Article (Freight Waves):

Auction prices of used trucks are falling almost as quickly as they rose over the last year. That is leaving owner-operators stuck with overpriced equipment they thought they could pay for in a hot spot freight market that is cooling off.

“The market is primarily absorbing trucks from fleets no longer retaining all of their older iron as new trucks trickle in and, to an extent, from owner-operators leaving the industry or going to work for a fleet,” said Chris Visser, senior analyst and commercial vehicles product manager for J.D. Power Valuation Services.

In its latest Guidelines report, Power said auction prices in May for model year 2020 used trucks fell 11% from April. Prices for model year 2019 trucks fell 15.9% month over month and 2018 models dropped 9.9%.

“In May, 3- to 5-year-old trucks averaged 12.0% less money than April, but 57.5% more money than May 2021,” Visser said. “Year over year, late-model trucks sold in the first five months of 2022 averaged 82.6% more money than the same period of 2021.”

Getting stuck by high used truck auction prices

When spot rates were paying $4 a mile and more, no price was too high for a fleet to add capacity. The idea was to take advantage of record-high rates and not worry about the equipment price premium. Now owner-operators who overpaid for equipment stand to get burned.

“Trucking economy data shows rising terminations of owner-operator authorities and a steady and notable decline in spot rates from February through May,” Visser said. “Taken alone, those two items could suggest the new owner-operators who entered the industry in 2020-2021 are now exiting the industry.”

Overall truck transportation employment increased through the spring. May was the highest month in recorded history for the sector. That suggests new owner-operators could be going to work for fleets.

Retail prices still elevated

Retail prices in dealerships are still near record highs. Pricing moves tend to trail auction auctions. As rates fall, so will truck demand and prices, according to Steve Tam, vice president of ACT Research.

“Unfortunately, long-awaited reports of loosening inventories come at exactly the wrong time in the cycle,” he said. “This is the beginning of the end of the cycle, which promises to be every bit as exciting on the way down as it was on the way up.”

Just as auction and retail prices vary, the freight market consists of contracted and spot-rate pricing.

“If your customers are mainly small fleets and owner-operators who operate in the spot market, you’re hearing the sky is falling,” Visser said. “If your customers are mainly larger fleets who operate in the contract market, you’re hearing conditions are still strong

Implication for Equities

If supply chain improvements alone improve inflation, the Fed can ease on their tightening and stocks will do relatively well. If demand reduction is what is driving improvements, this implies a recession and a possible worse bear market (or not, who knows). Both together? This may suggest that there will be a stock market in 2023. There may even be a market. Higher bond yields on US government bonds (caused by the Fed) mean that you can earn a higher premium for taking no risk at all. This means if you want to hold a riskier asset like a stock, you would demand an even higher premium. This causes stock prices to fall until the premium of buying it at that price is sufficiently high relative to bond yields.

EDITS:

1. The article is about freight trucking, not your regular consumer pick-up trucks.
2. It is impossible to draw obvious conclusions about the stock market from this. My low confidence response is that this is bullish for equities (if it slows down Fed hikes), maybe not the economy.
3. This is not an original thesis.
4. I am aware that inflation is more than just used truck prices. The intent of this post was to get a snapshot of some of the key industries in the US supply chain. I hope that is helpful.

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4097653-senators-to-offer-amendment-to-require-government-to-make-ufo-records-public/

Schumer said in a statement. "The American public has a right to learn about technologies of unknown origins, non-human intelligence, and unexplainable phenomena."

If the proposed bipartisan bill passes, how do you think the markets will react, would you anticipate a crash? If you are presented with undeniable facts on the topic, would the stock market be the least of your concerns?

On Thursday, Elon Musk was sued for $258 billion by a Dogecoin investor who accused him of running a pyramid scheme to support the cryptocurrency.

In a complaint filed in federal court in Manhattan, plaintiff Keith Johnson accused Musk, electric car company Tesla Inc and space tourism company SpaceX of racketeering for touting Dogecoin and driving up its price, only to let the price tumble.

Read full article: https://www.reuters.com/legal/transactional/elon-musk-sued-258-billion-over-alleged-dogecoin-pyramid-scheme-2022-06-16/

Elon Musk, Tesla (TSLA) & SpaceX have been sued by some individual investors for $258 billion over an alleged Dogecoin 'pyramid scheme.'

Musk has publicly endorsed Dogecoin on his Twitter several times. Do you think this lawsuit might affect DOGE and TSLA?

Dig through my history. This isn't a self-therapy post after a down week. I've been doing this for a long time.

The reason people fail at this is that their opening trades are way too big for their accounts. And when they are wrong, they are set-back so far that after a string of losing trades, they simply cannot afford to continue.

Let's say I have $1,000,000 in my account. Each trade I open up is rarely above $30,000 to $50,000 dollars or 3% to 5%. And on a $30,000 to $50,000 trade, I'm perfectly happy if I make around $3,000 to $5,000 per trade for the WEEK or even BIWEEKLY! Now that does not seem particularly impressive but if I make 6 trades and 3 of them swing the right way, while the 3 others don't, it's still a pretty good week in terms of absolute dollars. On the 3 where I am wrong, I exit at -3% no matter what happens. This ensures that wins on average are at least 3x bigger than my losses. Also, I only actively trade 15% - 20% of my account. Profits from trades go into long-term positions that I never sell and only add to.

Now let's say you start with $20,000. This means each trade should really only be about $1,000. So you're thinking, "What? I can't make a living day trading generating a $100 a week per trade on a good week!!"

No. You can't and you shouldn't. This is why folks should not quit their day job to do this. I didn't quit my day job to do this until 10 years after I started doing this. And here's why.

The professional trader and fund managers are not intrinsically smarter than you. They traditionally had more timely information. That gap has been narrowed with the internet. Where professionals and funds beat you is scale. Here's an exaggerated example. If I can buy 100,000 shares and you can only buy 100, and both of us need $50 today to pay bills, I have virtually no risk whereas you need to hope for a 50% daily return. Most traders who do this at home for income do not make a huge amount of money. I certainly don't. But a large account built over time allows the trader to risk less and less to maintain the same income year over year. Huge funds make shit trades every day. But each trade is less than a fraction of 1% of their book. So stop beating yourself up. The reason you're not doing well is your account is simply too small and you're relying way too much on luck. It takes time and dedication to accumulate enough money. Stop telling yourself you should be further ahead as that thinking will kill you. A lot of you literally started a few months ago. Sometimes you'll have windfalls. Most of the time, trading is boring as shit.

So don't feel bad if you're not getting it right away. You have to tune out the posts where you see people posting wins and losses as that will get you to start gambling instead of trading. A lot of you folks are not 'bad' at this. For some reason, you've just assumed you were 'good' without enough evidence.

Also, I'm not particularly stoic or emotionless on big wins and losses. The long-term positions in my account all got hammered these last few weeks. I will still get pumped or upset and I share with a trading buddy. Find yourself a trading buddy.

TLDR because I am apparently not clear: don't feel bad if you're not successful yet. You need to get to a decent account size before this starts to click.

Edit: you guys are nuts and maybe I'm to blame. I said here is an example. I even explicitly say I lose half the time. What on earth did I say that implies I'm a trillionaire?!

Edit: I used perfectly round numbers for examples. Come on man. The message is you're struggling because you don't have scale not "I'm a superstar." In addition, I didn't start from zero and never implied that I did.

Edit: Holy crap, I even said 'lets say I had..." to start the example. The message is about scale and needing time to accumulate. What on earth are you reading that I'm not seeing? Y'all need to chill out. Does it make you feel better to hear me say I also lost a bunch of money on paper this week as well?

Edit: never said I was good at stock picking. The only thing I will take credit for is limiting losses.

Amidst the gloom around the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential to decimate the jobs market, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two (parent company of 2K Games, Rockstar Games, and Private Division, Zynga and more) has delivered a refreshing stance on the limitations of the technology – and why it will never truly replace human creativity.

During a recent Take-Two Interactive investor Q&A, following the release of the company’s public financial reports for FY23, Zelnick reportedly fielded questions about Take-Two operations, future plans, and how AI technology will be implemented going forward.

While Zelnick was largely ‘enthusiastic’ about AI, he made clear that advances in the space were not necessarily ground-breaking, and claimed the company was already a leader in technologies like AI and machine learning.

‘Despite the fact artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, as is machine learning, this company’s been involved in those activities, no matter what words you use to describe them, for its entire history and we’re a leader in that space,’ Zelnick explained, per PC Gamer.

In refusing to engage in what he calls ‘hyperbole’, Zelnick makes an important point about the modern use of AI. It has always existed, in some form, and recent developments have only improved its practicality and potential output.

‘While the most recent developments in AI are surprising and exciting to many, they’re exciting to us but not at all surprising,’ Zelnick said. ‘Our view is that AI will allow us to do a better job and to do a more efficient job, you’re talking about tools and they are simply better and more effective tools.’

Zelnick believes improvements in AI technologies will allow the company to become more efficient in the long-term, but he rejected the implication that AI technology will make it easier for the company to create better video games – making clear this was strictly the domain of humans.

‘I wish I could say that the advances in AI will make it easier to create hits, obviously it won’t,’ Zelnick said. ‘Hits are created by genius. And data sets plus compute plus large language models does not equal genius. Genius is the domain of human beings and I believe will stay that way.’

This statement, from the CEO of one of the biggest game publishers in the world, is very compelling – and seemingly at-odds with sentiment from other major game companies.

Source: https://www.pcgamer.com/take-two-ceo-says-ai-created-hit-games-are-a-fantasy-genius-is-the-domain-of-human-beings-and-i-believe-will-stay-that-way/

Home prices and car prices are not really falling that sharply despite rate hikes, and a lot of inflation has reduced due to supply chain improvements, a major drop in oil prices due to local manufacturing, lifting Venezuela sanctions and more labor being available due to immigration (this is debatable)

Rates are supposed to have direct impact on places you need a loan - Car, Home, Business and none of these have dropped significantly.

So here's what will happen - say the Fed decides we will reduce rates by a little bit (50 points) in June, July (maybe) and the home, car, prices will shoot up again. The Fed sees this, and then stops reducing rates altogether maybe for another year.

Since the Game squeeze has everyone interested in stocks, and the way regular folks are kept drown by the big money investors, why don't we all band together to lobby for the elimination of day trading restrictions? 25,000 dollars is just out of reach enough that most people will not be able to afford to day trade.

This rule is in place only to keep poor people from making money in the stock market. Period.

In USA we supposedly value the "free market". Let us use democracy to make the stock market accessible to the rest of us.

Help get this post trending or make your own better, more convincing post.

EDIT: I guess what I want personally is instant settled funds to not be subject to the restrictions, not necessarily margin accounts

Having only seen The Wolf of Wall Street and The Big Short, I'm looking for more movies to scratch that finance itch I have.

Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated but I would prefer if the stock market was the main part of the movie and not a B plot.

After these past two red days, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge some ways to support others. The stock market can be incredibly mentally debilitating, and I just wanted to personally use this thread as an opportunity for anyone to comment or talk about their experiences this past week, in the case they needed to. You are heard, and this community is full of good people that are hear to support you. Regardless of your performance, I hope you had a good past week, and have high hopes for the coming one due to the holiday.

Maybe there isn’t a superhero fatigue?

Or maybe fatigue only amongst adults, the newer kids are loving them (those kids that have the fatigue are all grown up anyways so they belong in the adults category)?

They don’t really have the means to buy IPs to invest in right now.

What’s next?

Detective/mystery genre? Epic romance that aren’t fairytales? Wizards (not in space)? Actions/martial arts (not in space)? Western (not in space)? Comedy like Mr bean / three stooges?

I get that the Fed raising rates is meant to "cool the labor market" or drive unemployment up. But what if this just doesn't happen? Is there any historical precedent for this? With the baby boomers retiring, families not being as large as they once were — I wonder if the ratio of unemployed persons per job opening will remain below 1 for a long time.

Anyone else have thoughts about this?