STOCK MARKET WATCH - Tuesday, 13 April 2021

[Tansy_Gold]

STOCK MARKET WATCH, Tuesday, 13 April 2021

Previous SMW:
SMW for 12 April 2021




AT THE CLOSING BELL ON 12 April 2021


Dow Jones 33,745.40 -55.20 (0.16%)
S&P 500 4,127.99 -0.81 (0.020%)
Nasdaq 13,850.00 -50.19 (0.36%)

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Market Conditions During Trading Hours:

Google Finance
MarketWatch
Bloomberg
Stocktwits

(click on links for latest updates)

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Currencies:











Gold & Silver:






Petroleum:

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DU Economics Group Contributor Megathreads:

Progree's Economic Statistics (with links!)
mahatmakanejeeves' Rail Safety Megathread
mahatmakanejeeves' Oil Train Safety Megathread

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This thread contains opinions and observations. Individuals may post their experiences, inferences and opinions on this thread. However, it should not be construed as advice. It is unethical (and probably illegal) for financial recommendations to be given here.

[bucolic_frolic]

1. I'll never understand

I've followed a long series of gurus over the last 10 years. I took a course, one of the instructors is now in jail. I learn what I can, and move on to the next idea. I have a few I watch most weekends. I only need a few ideas because now I know pretty much what I'm doing.

The point of telling you this is: the latest obsession is riskless trades, perhaps because algorithms trade the market better than humans, or at least account for much of the volume. And I ask this question:

If these gurus with so much experience and so much insight and 9 screens and backup personnel and dedicated IT managers are SO good at what they do, have such great insight into the markets, have such a following ... why do they need to establish riskless positions?

I'm underwater slightly on a recommendation from one of them. It won't be a big deal, but it sure didn't pan out like he said. Gimme good understanding of candlestick charts, experience, patterns, value, and common sense about what will play and what won't. All the stats and tech in the world won't help a clueless trader.

[Warpy]

2. I don't follow the experts

because over the years, I've found that either they're way out of date by the time they hit the airwaves (PBS Louis Rukeyser) or so far off the mark that consistently doing the opposite was a better idea (Cramer, Kudlow).

The idea of riskless trading is why Wall Street is broken. It's either pump and dump or short and distort. The Game Stop fiasco has blown the lid off what's going on in that department, should people have been living under rocks.

Rich men hate risk of any sort and hedge funds sucking money out of the market while providing no value offer them just that, endless returns with no risk.

I would strongly suggest they all remember Long Term Capital Management, a hedge fund with a sure fire formula that went spectacularly bust after four years of success beyond anyone's dreams. Debt crises overseas sank them.

This system is simply not sustainable, endless profits at the very top and endless debt everywhere else. There are several debt bombs ready to explode and the system is not likely to survive them.

[Tansy_Gold]

3. "The idea of riskless trading is why Wall Street is broken."

I've been doing this thread lo these many years mainly because I fully expect that very broken Wall Street to collapse one of these days and I want to watch.

I know full well it will be a catastrophe of epic proportions, but I'm not going to turn away.

When I first came to this thread, one of my questions -- and I asked it more than once -- was "Isn't the stock market basically kind of a Ponzi scheme? You just keep trying to sell the stock for more than you paid to someone who hopes they can do the same, because what you earn in dividends really doesn't cover what you paid?"

No one has told me I was wrong.

[Warpy]

4. I'm with you all the way

I'm in the market because I am very lucky, my dad surprised me when he died with a portfolio that generates enough income to live on.

I learned a long time ago that the worst place to get financial advice was the TV. Second worst place was other poor folks. Now I see naive rich folks like rappers and sports stars getting sold a lot of pretty insane stuff like NFTs and SPACs (look em up, they are scary), companies buying back their stock on cheap loans from the Fed, and I know it's all going to pop.

Whether I make it out of here before it does, leaving Doctors Without Borders a nice chunk of change, or not, I know anything this topheavy and rigged to separate people who work for a living from their money while extending endless credit is not going to lasy a whole lot longer.

I'm just glad Bidden was elected. If the whole thing fell apart under Dumdum, it would be catastrophic. Biden might keep it at merely disastrous.

I've often said I won't believe in justice until I see Charles Koch and Rebekah Mercer trading slaps over a piece of mildewed pizza out of a dumpster. While I doubt it will go that far, I can still dream.

As for the timing, I know why. I have no idea when or how and no clue how to survive it with one's fortune intact. No one know those things until it is all over.

ETA: I don't see it as a Ponzi scheme because people who get in at the beginning often have to wait years for returns on a new stock, while people who get in much later will see those returns immediately unless somebody pumps the stock early on and the early birds can dump it at a profit. I see it more as a casino with crooked dice, stacked decks, weighted roulette wheels, and gamblers who try to cope by doing things like counting cards to reduce their own risk. If Vegas ran like Wall Street, the Feds would have shut the whole thing down years ago.