Down goes the Dow

seattle prattle wrote:

Any thoughts on Stamps.com

Penny stock and Robinhood fan favorite. Better for scalping day trades through options than long term holds, much like AMD

seattle prattle wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

How about a bet? From today AMZN underperforms Dow, S&P 500, and HSGFX over the next year. Any takers?

Put that in your calendar agip.

Igy

Everyone's in. That;s the point.

Since i've already been delegated to the sheeple, i guess i might as well raise my hand.

The stock price has literally never reflected the actual performance of the company so I won't wager any bets there. But I will say I'm bearish on Amazon as a company.

They're being taken to court in the EU over some pretty serious anti-trust concerns regarding the ridiculous vertical integration they've pulled off in Amazon Marketplace and specifically regarding their private label brand: AmazonBasics. The EU is almost certain to rule against them (they hit Google for pretty much the same thing) and, more importantly, it's going to officially confirm that Amazon is using it's customer's data (that is, the third parties that sell on the Marketplace) to compete against them and then use predatory pricing (along with the whole Fulfillment By Amazon thing) to squeeze them out.

Why is this a concern? Because Wal-Mart and Target are starting make waves into the e-commerce market space and have both pledged to spend whatever it takes to catch up. Now consider the Amazon Marketplace is the main cash cow that allows them to re-invest in other things and suddenly losing market share becomes a domino effect. If (and yes it's a big if) third party sellers decide to exit and head for Wal-mart or some other e-commerce store then Amazon could take a big hit. But wait! It gets even better! Amazon's other cash cow, AWS, is losing market share to Microsoft!

Amazon has always managed to lead the competition in being in the right place at the right time with otherwise run of the mill services, but the problem is they don't really have anything novel to sell or fall back on. A guy started a basic website to sell books and then other stuff at the height of Internet mania. Then they started offering basic cloud services en masse at the height of expensive employee lay-off mania (aka the Great Recession). They just have a bunch of cheap services, and that usually only lasts for so long until someone manages to do it cheaper.

seattle prattle wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

I guess the summer of love was interrupted by the shootings.

Strong work, Igy. You've pretty much completely missed the point.

Seattle doesn’t like anyone to point out that pesky little murder problem in the little downtown utopia he’s manufactured in his mind.

The history of richly valued companies is the same. Prices eventually come down to meet earnings. There are zero exceptions over a complete market cycle. Also, companies with exceptional growth peak, and slow more rapidly after peak. It all makes sense, regulation, margins, and competition. Amazon is known for it’s online retail business, a low margin business. The profit center is Amazon Web Services (AWS), a business IBM, MSFT, ORCL, and GOOG all play in. I would assume competition reduces margins over time. Thus under $1,500, easily.

can I post with a different handle wrote:

seattle prattle wrote:

Strong work, Igy. You've pretty much completely missed the point.

Seattle doesn’t like anyone to point out that pesky little murder problem in the little downtown utopia he’s manufactured in his mind.

I believe it was six shootings, two Blacks and one of them dead. Several minors. My wife asks “where are the parents?” I ask, “where were the authorities?” Lawlessness that is the outgrowth of ultra-liberal group think.

seattle prattle wrote:

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

I guess the summer of love was interrupted by the shootings.

Strong work, Igy. You've pretty much completely missed the point.

What exactly was the point? To let a bunch of kids LARP as pseudo-anarchists for a couple weeks? The whole thing was as predictable (and laughable) as Occupy Wall Street.

It's clear that a pro-Marxist (at least to some degree, since Marxism has been re-invented so many times by apologists over the past 80 years that's hard to keep track of what that dog sh!t even means anymore) element exists within the BLM movement.

Seems like they should probably denounce that element from the movement but what do I know

A bunch of cheap services to the value added at most every level is noteworthy. And really noteworthy, i would add.

Their distribution network would have been thought unimaginable had they not done it, with two day service now matter of fact, and at a very reasonable charge. ANd with the promise of 1 delivery being rolled out very shortly.

Their reliability is quite good, a matter most shoppers will reward.

And the issue of convenience is just major - and by that i mean one charge appears on your credit card regardless of how many millions of vendors that sell over their marketplace. Before Amazon, nothing like that remotely existed. Any of us victimized by credit card fraud are keenly aware that this isn't something to take for granted and Amazon is essentially a safeguard in that respect.

In a nutshell, there's just not anything else out there quite like it. Walmart doesn't have the reach no matter how big a competitor they are. Amazon is not going away. And i find it hard to believe that even some legislation and/or fines is going to do much to change their dominance.

But hey, make your bets, i mean investments, as you see fit, and we'll see.

And i see what you mean about Stamps.com . ANd i don't understand why they are even necessary since it's so easy to print and pay for mailing labels from your PC through USPS.

I have traded AMD a few times against your recommendation and have mostly just broke even, maybe lost some lunch money.

Good talkin' with you.

I’ll have to ask my son what service he uses, since he does a lot of shipping for his business:

https://www.cimarrontechnology.com/

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Well it is that market. Leaving someone else to hold the bag. So much for the social conscience of this era.

Hold the bag? Hopefully there’s enough space in that bag for the historically inevitable gain that stocks experience.

Well, certainly there were some bag holders on March 23rd.

Less than three months left to use that troll handle Detector Dude. Why not Betrand tonight? Your one crazy dude.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Well, certainly there were some bag holders on March 23rd.

Less than three months left to use that troll handle Detector Dude. Why not Betrand tonight? Your one crazy dude.

Bag holding is historically a guaranteed win.

My one crazy dude? WTF?

Racket wrote:

seattle prattle wrote:

Strong work, Igy. You've pretty much completely missed the point.

What exactly was the point? To let a bunch of kids LARP as pseudo-anarchists for a couple weeks? The whole thing was as predictable (and laughable) as Occupy Wall Street.

It's clear that a pro-Marxist (at least to some degree, since Marxism has been re-invented so many times by apologists over the past 80 years that's hard to keep track of what that dog sh!t even means anymore) element exists within the BLM movement.

Seems like they should probably denounce that element from the movement but what do I know

Very good article in today's NY Times describing the purpose behind CHOP, how it was a collection of loose knit groups with different purposes and causes, no clear leadership, and predominantly peaceful, though control was slipping at night as outsiders were increasingly taking over and causing trouble. It also describes the mayor's evolving attitude toward the area and how the recent violence clearly made it necessary to restore control over the area. Again, just read the article if you care:

In what way is that article supposed to convince anyone that allowing this for more than a day or two was a good idea?

This is some relativist bullsh!t that largely draws off neo-Marxism and I seriously cannot wait for the day when this plague of meaningless critical theory deconstructionist sh!t aesthetic finally dies forever.

In other words, it was doomed from the start.

There's way to productively encourage police reform. This was probably the stupidest and least productive way to have that conversation. This is, in fact, the counter equivalent of all the stupid sh!t cops have been doing during all the protests that made them look like absolute retards.

The city of Seattle should have dispersed those losers on day one, and now two people are dead, and any conversation you wanted to have about police reform got 10x harder.

Anyways, jobless rate down to 11%. I still think the will to lock down again is pretty much nonexistent but we'll see. Futures way up on the news

So question is... a place like NYC, did it get essentially herd immunity?

Are the waves in CA, TX etc enough to go back into strict lockdown? By the fall will there be enough for herd immunity?

Swaglord_the_real_one_1 wrote:

So question is... a place like NYC, did it get essentially herd immunity?

Are the waves in CA, TX etc enough to go back into strict lockdown? By the fall will there be enough for herd immunity?

No - probably only 20% of NYCers has antibodies.

But that counts for something.

Add that to masks, social distancing, protection of nursing homes and better medicine...and you get destruction of the virus.

Now if the rest of the country could do the same thing, we'll be golden.

This is not sustainable.

https://twitter.com/hmeisler/status/1278744493794131968?s=21

agip wrote:

Swaglord_the_real_one_1 wrote:

So question is... a place like NYC, did it get essentially herd immunity?

Are the waves in CA, TX etc enough to go back into strict lockdown? By the fall will there be enough for herd immunity?

No - probably only 20% of NYCers has antibodies.

But that counts for something.

Add that to masks, social distancing, protection of nursing homes and better medicine...and you get destruction of the virus.

Now if the rest of the country could do the same thing, we'll be golden.

Protection of nursing homes? You mean legal protection for the owners of nursing homes, That's all that has been done on the protecting nursing homes front

Thank God for Tesla.

Trading at $1,211+

Opened year at $430.