4 ms·

With interest rates at 0% and a quarter of all US dollars in existence having been created in the last year, there is no other choice besides speculation to hav

With interest rates at 0% and a quarter of all US dollars in existence having been created in the last year, there is no other choice besides speculation to have any hope of getting ahead. Policymakers have made quite clear that "work hard, save money" is a suckers bet.

baq 6y ago
the memes about the money printer were pure gold - and totally right given the madness of the past couple weeks.
leetcrew 6y ago
have they? my meme positions have barely broken even this year, while the S&P 500 is up ~19% over the same time period. working hard and investing the bulk of my savings in broad market ETFs is working quite well for me so far.
- screye 6y ago
  > while the S&P 500 is up ~19% over the same time period Which reinforces WSB's claim of the market having no grounding in reality.
- filoleg 6y ago
  This is just your own sample not representative of the overall picture (not claiming that mine is representative either). Out of my group of friends that I talk to almost every day and bet on "meme positions" (all fairly similar to each other in terms of which positions we pick), it is all over the place. Just for this year alone: One person in a significant negative this year. One with a small negative. One with 45%+. One with 77%+. One with 110%+. One with 247%+. It is less about which specific "meme positions" you enter, but when you enter them and when you exit them. As well as predicting certain "meme positions" before they show up on WSB, but that one had a very small effect on our portfolios, given it is something really difficult to predict correctly. And mine you, none of us went full yolo wsb-style. None of us bet our life savings, we were just betting fairly consistently and on a lot of different things. And even the highest gainers never went full yolo and dropped more than 5-7% of their portfolio on their biggest bets
  - leetcrew 6y ago
    > It is less about which specific "meme positions" you enter, but when you enter them and when you exit them. this is a good point. I mostly entered my positions after the symbols had gotten a day or two of buzz on wsb, which is usually too late to realize significant gains. my buddy had more of a yolo strategy: "buy anything sufficiently ridiculous the first time you see it on wsb". he did a lot better than I did. I do it for fun mostly. I realized early on I don't have the stomach to put large amounts of my money into memes, and the amount of time I've spend watching tickers for 2-4% of my portfolio value simply isn't worth it on a $/hr basis. my main point is just that this was a great year for frugal people with good jobs who invested their savings somewhat conservatively. the (unrealized) gains from my s&p etfs this year exceeded my actual salary by quite a bit. I don't feel like a chump for not going all in on short-dated options.

baq 6y ago

the memes about the money printer were pure gold - and totally right given the madness of the past couple weeks.

leetcrew 6y ago

have they? my meme positions have barely broken even this year, while the S&P 500 is up ~19% over the same time period. working hard and investing the bulk of my savings in broad market ETFs is working quite well for me so far.

screye 6y ago
> while the S&P 500 is up ~19% over the same time period Which reinforces WSB's claim of the market having no grounding in reality.
filoleg 6y ago
This is just your own sample not representative of the overall picture (not claiming that mine is representative either). Out of my group of friends that I talk to almost every day and bet on "meme positions" (all fairly similar to each other in terms of which positions we pick), it is all over the place. Just for this year alone: One person in a significant negative this year. One with a small negative. One with 45%+. One with 77%+. One with 110%+. One with 247%+. It is less about which specific "meme positions" you enter, but when you enter them and when you exit them. As well as predicting certain "meme positions" before they show up on WSB, but that one had a very small effect on our portfolios, given it is something really difficult to predict correctly. And mine you, none of us went full yolo wsb-style. None of us bet our life savings, we were just betting fairly consistently and on a lot of different things. And even the highest gainers never went full yolo and dropped more than 5-7% of their portfolio on their biggest bets
- leetcrew 6y ago
  > It is less about which specific "meme positions" you enter, but when you enter them and when you exit them. this is a good point. I mostly entered my positions after the symbols had gotten a day or two of buzz on wsb, which is usually too late to realize significant gains. my buddy had more of a yolo strategy: "buy anything sufficiently ridiculous the first time you see it on wsb". he did a lot better than I did. I do it for fun mostly. I realized early on I don't have the stomach to put large amounts of my money into memes, and the amount of time I've spend watching tickers for 2-4% of my portfolio value simply isn't worth it on a $/hr basis. my main point is just that this was a great year for frugal people with good jobs who invested their savings somewhat conservatively. the (unrealized) gains from my s&p etfs this year exceeded my actual salary by quite a bit. I don't feel like a chump for not going all in on short-dated options.