There seems to be a growing trend for people wanting to do "side-hustles" or to live off passive income, but if r/UKPersonalFinance is anything to go by these tend to be people earning <£22k or with about a grand in cash they want to generate an income from. The reality is most of these people would be far better served putting that effort into maximising their salary.

My girlfriend does surveys for Prolific in her spare time which, off the top of my head, guarantee to pay at least £8 an hour. She also participates in research studies, with the best one being getting paid £100 to wear a Fitbit for 8 weeks and at the end of the study getting to keep both the Fitbit and the Motorola phone provided to track your progress on it.

>>8118

Fair observation, and I agree. There's probably some psychological comfort in the feeling that you're not fully reliant on one source of income, even if the reality is that you are reliant due to how little you earn overall.

Personally, I am putting all my effort into maximising income in my chosen field at the moment. I've landed a decent job for 2021 (about 32k per year after tax) and intend to live a slightly nicer life than I have been for the past two years, where I was scraping by on part time work while earning a postgraduate degree.

Once I do have some savings, though, at what point does it become worthwhile investing in something? I've heard some arbitrary figures thrown out, such as "don't invest until you've saved at least 25k". Is there any good reason for this kind of thinking?

I also admit I'm someone that is inclined to save as a form of "runway" to take further big career risks, e.g. moving country or putting my money toward a new qualification. These have almost universally paid off so far, but I have also considered where I might be if I put that money to other uses. I could make a more informed decision about these kind of tradeoffs if I knew where I could put my money and what sort of return (if any) I could expect.

>>8119

Use your pension allowance to the full. It's tax free, if you take a salary sacrifice you'll pay no NI on your contributions and your employer will often match, so it's unbelievably cost-effective. If you play your cards right, you can often double your money before you've earned a penny in interest.

For similar reasons, get a Lifetime ISA - the government will give you a 25% bonus as long as you use the money to buy your first home or keep it until retirement.

>>8119
>Once I do have some savings, though, at what point does it become worthwhile investing in something? I've heard some arbitrary figures thrown out, such as "don't invest until you've saved at least 25k". Is there any good reason for this kind of thinking?

It all depends on your goals. Saving for a house, having a retirement plan, other capital expenditure, that sort of thing.

When it comes to cash it's generally recommended to keep at least six months of expenditure relatively available for emergencies or if you lose your job.

>>8118
Buy buttcoins. They've gone from £22k to almost £26k in about 24 hours, so at this rate they should be worth well over £100k by the end of next week.

>>8119
>"don't invest until you've saved at least 25k"

No, that's a waste and you'll never save that on your earnings. I was on about the same as you last year and believe me that after spending on a girlfriend and the odd trip to see a mate or parents there's not much left. You're poor and should find a lass with money.

My rule is £800 budgeted in my bank account as contingency/twat-money for immediate access and then savings go into a fund and share account. I suggest putting a regular savings amount from your monthly budget in a low-cost index tracker\s and if it all goes south then we'll all have bigger things to worry about. Don't bother with 'owt fancy that has an objective to beat the system, shitcoins or trying to play the market.

Like otherlad suggest you'll want to think about your long-term savings goals and for a Lifetime ISA the cap is 4k a year which nets you a 1k bonus. You can use this towards a deposit on your first home but be warned that taking money out of this means the government also takes 1/4 so consider this money locked. I suggest that come march open a Lifetime ISA and dump what you have saved which won't impact your April 2021-22 amount. You're goal being to have 4k in a share and fund account you can dump right into your Lifetime ISA every April.

>>8123
Not him, but I have £25k liquidity, sitting in my current account doing nothing, and I'm on less than the average wage. But I'm not going to pretend I'm a self-made man, I'm from a reasonably well-off family which has given me the freedom to build those savings. Maybe the shit advice on waiting has come from people from a similar background that don't have the same self-awareness.

>>8124
>I have £25k liquidity, sitting in my current account doing nothing

That's insane and goes against even the most conservative advice I've seen. By 25k in savings I'm sure they mean putting that in an ordinary savings account on which there are many with the lower return end offering immediate access.

>>8125
Oh of course I'm not doing it deliberately, I'm just too lazy to look into where I should be investing it. I suppose I'll keep back five grand for six months of emergencies as advised earlier, and put the rest into... ISAs? Trackers? Eh I dunno, I'm already bored.

>>8123

Can you still take advantage of the Lifetime ISA if you have the HelpToBuy ISA already?

>>8126
As has been said, you need to work out what you're wanting to do with this money first. If you'll need the funds in five years keep it in cash, beyond that look to invest it.

>>8126
It's literally a few hours of your life and then you're best off leaving it alone and forgetting about it. Those few hours will earn thousands of pounds every year for the lifetime of the money sitting there which will rise as the money grows and you can boast to people that you're some money wizard.

If you can't manage that then there are people whose whole job is to manage money for a fee. Putting money into a fund/credit-union/whatever is pretty much that anyway. You can ring up your bank right now and say "hello I have 20k, tell me what to do with it" and they'll be calling you Sir and offering video calls.

>>8128
You can only pay into one ISA a year but there's nothing stopping you having both existing beyond that. Just consider that taking money out of a Lifetime ISA for anything but a limited number of reasons carries a 25% penalty whereas HtB varies by provider.

>>8130
>If you'll need the funds in five years keep it in cash

I think the term 'cash' might be misleading in this context. A savings account with a financial institution will be guaranteed under FSCS if the institution goes bust up to more than any of us need worrying about.

>>8123
>My rule is £800 budgeted in my bank account as contingency/twat-money for immediate access and then savings go into a fund and share account. I suggest putting a regular savings amount from your monthly budget in a low-cost index tracker\s and if it all goes south then we'll all have bigger things to worry about. Don't bother with 'owt fancy that has an objective to beat the system, shitcoins or trying to play the market.

Do you mean £800 just as a standby in your account, or £800 put away just to fuck with per month? The latter is too much for me at £32k per year.

"Beating the system" is honestly a huge draw as to why I made this thread, but I know I may have to adjust my expectations. I imagine aiming for FIRE requires living like a monk unless you're an extremely high earner, or you're planning to reach retirement only a few years earlier than average.

Regardless, I want the best possible outcome for myself. Even though at the moment my main goal is to get a good job, I wish it wasn't my only option aside from starving.

>>8132
One of my friends is doing FIRE and he's now earning £35k but was up until recently on £24k. He uses salary sacrifice to put most of his earnings into a pension and avoid repaying any student loan then puts about £600pm into an ISA that's invested largely in punts and ethical funds. I'd say he doesn't live like a miser, but he either walks or takes public transport everywhere and always lives in house shares.

>>8133
I don't live like a miser, but do like the FIRE methodology very much; I was lucky enough to get paid a LOT in my twenties and poured money into my pension. I think it's one of the best investments you can make (and about the only really good money thing I ever did). Will retire very early.

>>8132
Standby, I fucking wish I had £800 a month to piss up the wall. I eyeballed it awhile ago but got by on £200 which was frequently dipped into back when I was on 31k and we weren't under lockdown. I'd post a snapshot of my budget only purple is holding us ransom for takeaway Pizza.

>Regardless, I want the best possible outcome for myself. Even though at the moment my main goal is to get a good job, I wish it wasn't my only option aside from starving.

Money is magnetic, scrimp and save you will soon attract more is my general advice.

>>8134

I'm pretty much in the same boat - I've been wondering recently what the upper limit on salary sacrifice is - I could really do 100% and use the money from my other sources to live on, but I feel like they won't let me do that.

>>8136
You should be able to do it down to minimum wage.

>>8125

I have 60 grand in an instant access saver as my "I don't care if I get fired because I have a year's living expenses" fund. Is there anything more intelligent I could be doing with that money assuming I might need to start drawing £5k/month out of it at some point?

>>8138

You must have a much nicer life than me if you need 60 grand as a year's living expenses.

>>8139

Must be one of those London lads paying 30k a year in rent and another twenty on quinoa.

>>8136
The upper limit on annual pension contribution is £40k per year.

>>8139

Divorces, kids, and drugs habits are hell on your finances.

>>8141
Only if you can't carry forward.

>>8138

Depending on the interest rate of your savings account, Premium Bonds may be better - currently 1% equivalent interest. Though it is not quite instant access - it takes a few days I think to get your money, it is zero risk (and it is nice to get an email saying you have won).

>>8144

Premium Bonds! I was trying to remember the name last night and all I could come up with was "National Bonds" which didn't sound right at all. Googling for "like the national lottery but government bonds" was surprisingly unhelpful too.

My savings account is currently at a measly 0.25% interest. I'm sure if I went down to the local branch (if and when it's ever open, are physical banks essential in the age of cash machines and online banking? My mum's in her 70s and knows how to use a cash machine) I could get some kind of upgrade to another type of savings account but those bonus deals usually only last a year before they revert to the standard rate.

Cheers lad, you've not only fixed my tip-of-my-tongue issue from last night you've also given me a decent idea to investigate. Thanks lad!

>>8144
>>8145

I've also noticed that NS&I do a nice little Junior ISA that I can throw up to £9000 a year in tax-free for the nipper to blow through when he either goes on a gap yaah or gets his first ASBO.

>>8146
If you've the spare dosh put £240 a month into a pension for him. Tax relief would gross it up to £300.

>>8144
>>8145
Do you really think a fucking lottery is the sign of a good deal?

>>8148

It's a lottery where you get all your money back if you lose, guaranteed by the government. With interest rates at record lows, it's not the worst option for ultra-safe savings. You'll probably win nothing, but if the alternative is getting 0.01% APR...

>>8148

It's significantly better than the bedrock low rates you'll get anywhere else at the moment if you don't have huge amounts to invest.

My grandad had premium bonds, and going through his finances when he died they did perform better than his ISA over about 30 years, that always stuck out to me as we always made fun of him for getting excited when he got a letter saying he won two quid or whatever.

>>8147

I'm going to shock everyone here by admitting I don't have a pension myself (I'm incredibly pessimistic about the mid future and I'm absolutely certain almost no one under 40 is going to live long enough to receive the state pension if it even exists in 45 years time) so I'd never considered that you could start building a pension pot for a kid, an interesting idea.

That said, assuming the entire world doesn't end within the next 15 years or so he could at least cash out a Junior ISA at 18 and go scuba diving around Venice while Rome burns, or something.

>>8152

Get a fucking pension lad. The best time to start a pension is ten years ago, but the second best time is now. If you don't trust the state to provide for you in old age, then that's all the more reason to provide for yourself.

>>8152
A little exercise in compounding, ladm8. If an investment grows by 6.5% annually it would double every 11 years. Let's say you put £3,600 into a pension for a newborn sprog. Tax relief means your initial outlay is £2,880.

At age 11 it's doubled to £7,200.
At age 22 it's doubled to £14,400.
At age 33 it's doubled to £28,800.
At age 44 it's doubled to £57,600.
At age 55 it's doubled to £115,200.
At age 66 it's doubled to £230,400.

If you were in a position to do this for a few years then you would be setting your kid up for life with a comfortable retirement. There's a reason the wealthy tend to do this for their grandchildren, in part because it's also taking funds out of their estate for IHT.

>>8154

While I doubt I'll ever be wealthy enough to ever need to worry about inheritance tax, 6.5% APR is very, very nice indeed. Cheers lad, I'll look into it.

You lot are talking about complicated stuff, but I would like your thoughts on something. I have about £18,000 just resting in a savings account. I have been meaning to stick it in a stocks & shares ISA to buy into a index tracker of sorts. Is that advisable?

Please no lifetime ISAs or anything that will penalise me for withdrawing my money early.

>>8154
Meanwhile, inflation is 5%. Oh look, that compounds too.
Management fees and the occasional Woodford 'nah, no money for you' also make me an unenthusiastic investor. I do have a pension (company matches, so good), but my pension statements over the years really don't show the magic of compounding leading to a rosy future. Those pounds I spent as a fresh graduate 30 years ago, have led to a pot I can earn in a few days. I could really have done with that money back then.
Small scale investing just feels like a waste of time, compared to using that time to earn more or do interesting things (like buying slightly nicer houses and riding that insane train, has worked for me at a level I've never even seen suggested for other investments).
_Saving_, though, makes sense, since at some point I'd like to stop work or ease off, but I'm just not seeing my saving pot actually growing much. Can it really and should I put the effort in?
Wish I'd mined bitcoin back in the day and kept it, but who doesn't...

>>8157
If we're talking proper actual returns over a 60 year timeframe then inflation between 1959 and 2019 averaged out at 5.4% annually.

I don't think a global stock market index has been running that long. The MSCI World Index is probably the furthest you can go back and between January 1975 and January 2021 it has returned 21415.40%, so that's a compound return of 12.39% p.a. if I've done my sums right.

>the occasional Woodford

If you're unhappy with active management then use an index tracker. Woodford is so noteworthy because what happened is so rare; it's certainly not an 'occasional' event.

>>8156
It depends on your appetite for risk. Market performance far outstrips the interest on savings accounts but it goes up and down so if there's a crisis and you need to withdraw in a 5 year timeframe then you can lose money (common wisdom is that you will have made money by year 5). To address this risk people usually maintain a portfolio that includes bonds and what-not in fractions that vary by age - bonds are safer but the return reflects that so are better for old people's pension savings.

There's lots of stuff you can read online about this. As before think about what you're doing.

With that out the way; I'll say that I remain confident and even though I'm planning to buy a house this year I condensed everything in December into three low-cost trackers covering Japan, US and UK which I consider safe as a chav in a box. That's cocky by common wisdom but I'm confident for reasons and if 1 and/or all shit the bed then I'll just spend a few more years putting money in before I buy a place which will end up considerably better than what I can afford now. Also I'm a lazy fucker.

Bonds are still a joke of an investment in terms of returns. Hence Premium Bond lads gambling on a 1% return.

>ISA

Why bother? You're not going to exceed £12.3k in profits to be eligible for capital gains tax. If you do then, fuck me, I'll pay your CGT if you tell me what it is you're doing.

You're not losing anything by opening a fund and share account as an ISA, maybe compare platform fees but I doubt it'll change. What you will do though is lose the chance to pay into another ISA that year - should that ever be something you want to do.

>>8159
> Why bother? You're not going to exceed £12.3k in profits to be eligible for capital gains tax. If you do then, fuck me, I'll pay your CGT if you tell me what it is you're doing.

I thought interest from bank accounts was treated as income for the purposes of income tax. Have I missed something or are you suggesting setting up a limited company with a business account so that interest counts towards capital gains and not personal income?

>>8159
Thanks mate. I will read up some more on it.

>three low-cost trackers covering Japan, US and UK
Could you share what trackers that might be and what platform you would recommend? I have been eyeing HL for a bit now.

>>8161
HL is great.

I have a couple of Legal & General Funds which are doing great, the one HSBC tracker I have is doing shit.

>>8160
What?

>>8161
This is a HL website!

That said you pay more in platform fees on HL which add up (my tips will cost you £7~ a month on your amount) so if you just want to plop some money down then Vanguard is almost certainly a better deal on platform fees and probably others too. The main advantage of HL is apps, charts, selection etc. and like me you'll probably be too lazy to change once you're in.

Anyway:
HSBC FTSE 250 INDEX
ISHARES JAPAN EQUITY INDEX
LEGAL & GENERAL US INDEX

1. I'd be tempted to switch out FTSE 250 for 100 or, if you hate Britain, pick something else. It's underperformed for obvious reasons in recent years and your bet will be that the vaccine programme continues to lead on Europe and possibly even the US meaning we can be normal-ish sooner.

2. Japan is a good bet for long-term stability and Abe-Suga have been doing things Japan has needed for a long-time in opening up trade. It's also in good proximity to the rest of Asia without so much obvious problems.

3. The US just grows and this has beaten all my other bets. It has a little star next to it and is cheap so it makes me feel special. Throw all your money here if you want, fuck it all.

Previously I looked into South Korea but things have been booming for too long imo and I expect it'll drop like a stone as people cash out like happened with tech. I did a jolly with Italy recently but it just pissed me off by doing nothing and a specialist fund is expensive.

>>8163
>LEGAL & GENERAL US INDEX

I've got some of the L&G Global Tech Index one which is doing well for me. ALSO you need some Fundsmith in your life, they're doing the best out of all my funds.

If you're going to pick funds then the key thing is to understand what you're actually investing in rather and why you've chosen those funds than following what everyone else seems to be doing. Otherwise when things get choppy you'll start to panic.

I would pick a global equity fund for the core of your holdings that you can set and forget about. Most people when they're investing look to manage risk and they try to do that through spreading their investment around; investing across the globe would provide better diversification than investing in one geographic region. This does depend on your attitude to risk; you could diversify further by investing across other asset classes but there is the trade-off between risk and reward so it'd be at the expense of potentially lower returns; if you're investing over the long-term then the shorter term peaks and troughs of the markets get smoothed out anyway.

Once you've got your core established you could look to have satellite holdings in whatever takes your fancy. Biotech. Health. Gold. Individual stocks. Anything you have a particular interest in or passion about helps on this front.

Lastly, whichever platform is best for you will depend upon how much you're investing and how frequently you trade. In my shoes AJ Bell shit all over HL but it's not best for everyone.

>>8165

Is it possible to get enough of an insight in a particular industry that you invest and make money from that specific area?

I've worked in biotech and health for the past couple of years and would have loved to have thrown money towards a few companies during that time, but never had the money to be able to do it.

>>8168
I'll give you a few examples. My friend is a vegan and he's quite passionate about the environment, so he's invested in companies that he feels will do well in those areas like Beyond Meat and funds like Baillie Gifford Positive Change; the latter was absolutely ridiculous last year because its largest holdings include Tesla and Moderna. I have a friend who works in food technology, or something like that, so he's bought into Agilent Technologies because he's been impressed with them through his dealings in that industry and they've been steadily going up.

I work in financial advice and the only company I've invested in related to that is AJ Bell, so please use their platform, because I like them as a company and I knew when they floated at the end of December 2018 their price would go up considerably. Everything beyond that is taking a punt on a fund like Smith & Williamson Artificial Intelligence that is in sectors I have a hunch will do well at the time.

>>8168
>>8169
I reckon the right kind of advice is to invest in the companies you like. If you think killing crabs is great and there's a certain business who provides a quality service then you do a little further research (e.g. ESG) and invest. Obviously they're doing something right by the consumer and by raising demand for shares you offer them greater potential to raise capital for improvements that, by extension, help you have better crab killing products. Then when they fuck up by doing a new crab saving product line you'll hopefully be ahead of the curve enough to get out.

It's an idealist outlook and there's other ways to invest but you ought to be cynical of getting in early on the next big thing or even beating the market. Also if you're investing in anything related to your profession then seriously sit down and ask if you could defend it in a tribunal - that goes double if you're an NHS-lad as even the whiff of being bent will leave a mark.

In b4 it's in the news that millions gets pumped into Games Workshop because you nerds decide to invest in your hobbies.

>>8171
Games Workshop performed better than the market last year if I'm not mistaken.

I want to buy some Abcam shares because they just went public last year but they're not listed on eToro.

I bought Thermofisher Scientic because I recognized it from working in Mol Bio labs and it's looking pretty healthy so far with a presentation to be made this week.

I have no idea what I'm doing.

>>8172
About five years ago the Games Workshop share price was about £5.50. It's currently at about £117.

>>8171
That already happened in 2016. Have a look at a chart that covers Games Workshop's entire history.

>>8175
That was you lads behind it?

>>8176

People have theorised about what caused it, from the release of the Primaris range introducing new blood to the 8th edition of 40K and renewed interest image of Sigmar riding the wave of popularity "nerd stuff" in general is enjoying recently (thanks to the likes of TV shows such as Stranger Things featuring DnD).

However personally I think it's just a complete stroke of luck for them, they had new management take over and released a refresh of much of their product range [i:]just[/i] in time for the lads who were kids in the 90s and early 00s, during GW's last major peak in popularity, to start reaching the stage in the life they can afford to spend a fuckload of money on plastic soldiers they wish they'd had as a kid.

>>8177
I would also ay a part of it there's a lot of bored people with time on their hands spending it painting up models.

>>8178

Yeah, they've no doubt done very well out of the pandemic, but they were already on the upward trajectory before it.

I wouldn't consider them a safe investment though, I forsee it going the same way as before where they eventually get a bit too greedy and alienate a lot of customers. The non-grognard normies won't stick around when the nerd culture fad ends in another few years.

>>8176

Like everything else, Tonty Blair was behind it.

>>8179

They've been putting out video games pretty consistently in recent years which have been pretty well received.

Whilst I don't like the business model of the Necromunda re-release it seems to be the TG equivalent of doing DLC which has been very profitable for the video gaming industry.

If GW allows somebody to do serious TV/Movie adaptations of their IP I could see them increasing sales further still.

>>8181

I'm a bit miffed at the number of supplements in the new Necromunda but a full range of gangs and rules are, afaik, available through one book now. You just need to hold on and not buy things as soon as they're released as they seem to consolidate them later much of the time.

Of course you can just use the minis for vintage necromunda, the new gang kits are very nice.

>>8182

If they'd just do a proper skirmish like Necromunda but with 40k minis/factions, I'd be all over it. Kill Team is shit.

My Stobart investment has roughly doubled in value. What stupid company should I reinvest the gains into?

>>8196
Weaponised Autism generated some remarkable movement in Gamestop Stock yesterday.

Those people reckon PLTR price is being suppressed until lockup is over and that the price should moon at the end of this month. Only 20% of stock is in circulation currently, with the 80% owned by insiders to potentially go on sale the first week of February. Citi just downgraded the stock this morning and so it's doing especially shitty today. This is a data analysis type company who has its fingers in a lot of State Surveillance type activity. Potentially could be a ten bagger if it goes the way of Tesla (Peter Thiel is in the Paypal mafia).

Blackberry has been doing poorly, but had a rebound after doing a deal with Amazon before being shorted into the dirt by Hedge Funds. They're getting involved in making software for EV so maybe could be on track for an uptrend.

I like the ARK ETFs for being able to invest in an area of tech without having to put too many eggs in a single basket (but for a couple of them the growth is driven mainly by TSLA).

finviz.com is a cool site to look at stock info
I don't know anything about investing except what I'm told to do by /r/wallstreetbets and /biz/ on the other place.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-13/heavily-shorted-gamestop-soars-most-ever-as-day-traders-circle

>>8200

BB had a good day today.

>>8200

The Wallstreetbets phenomenon is endlessly amusing, at least if you're someone that can afford to invest a few grand on something a meme post told you to buy. I keep seeing posts like "I found wsb yesterday and now I own 100 GME shares" which feels like a disaster waiting to happen, but then I suppose it's not really different to people watching youtube videos ten years ago about how to become your own boss via forex trading.

>>8214
It goes for all forms of investing really. UKPersonalFinance is full of people who don't know what they're doing and will invest in Vanguard because they've decided to follow what everyone else is doing without truly understanding why or what this actually means, so they'll they have to sell their investment and reinvest it every time it goes up to benefit from compounding or some dumb bollocks like that; it was fun watching them flap around when everything went tits up in March.

I was doing really well from my Blackberry trade then fucked it all up by buying Bionano Genomics high. I'm one of the poor retail meme investors that you richlads are being judgy about.

>>8216

No judgement, I'm in the dangerous position of knowing a little bit but not a lot. There's no doubt my portfolio would be better off had I just followed the top post on WSB every week. If their polls of holdings are to be believed, they're basically a decentralised hedge fund at this point, and playing their own game. I don't know what the industrylads think about it, but I like it, it feels new.

>>8217

My take is that most of the trading that happens is algorithmic (like in Flash Boys) and conforms to certain specific patterns based on stock movement with little consideration of things that are happening in the real world regarding companies.

Large hedge funds manipulate markets to suit themselves by throwing their weight behind trades. These people usually have boomer mindset and it's most apparent when shorting companies to try and acquire them at less than fair market value.

Trading has become more accessible to poor people via things like RobinHood and although individual behaviour isn't enough to move markets, collective behaviour can be influential.

Young professional traders are frustrated because they understand the flaws in the market and can see how the whales manipulate it, but are unable to do anything about it. see Byron the Bulb from Gravity's Rainbow If they post on the other place they can recruit sufficient numbers of people to achieve the kind of 'Open Source Hedge Fund' phenomenon you mention.

Most of the successful investment of recent decades has operated on a kind of Rentier Capitalism or Capturing Value kind of paradigm, whereas a lot of the tech stocks that have flourished recently are creating new tech and new markets creating a potential future space for growth.

I can't figure out how much of the current sitch is Speculative Bubble and how much is actual New Paradigm, but I will continue to gamble my beer money on markets for as long as Pubs, Restaurants and Cinemas are closed.

>>8152
>I'm going to shock everyone here by admitting I don't have a pension myself (I'm incredibly pessimistic about the mid future and I'm absolutely certain almost no one under 40 is going to live long enough to receive the state pension if it even exists in 45 years time)

...and? What's that got to do with building a personal pension? Surely that's an incentive to do more about it?

>>8215
>, so they'll they have to sell their investment and reinvest it every time it goes up to benefit from compounding

Pardon me?

>>8218
I've been having similar thoughts myself although I keep having a horrible pessimism from the potential for manipulation either deliberate or because of spectacle. That and the story of the senior Kennedy knowing a crash was imminent because a shoeshine boy tried giving him stock tips.

Oh well, may as well enjoy the roaring '20s while they're here. Maybe one day the whales in Forex will get a well deserved kicking.

GME short squeeze hit today. Might not be over yet.

>>8224

I don't think it will be over for a while, today was probably just one fund hitting margin, there's more to come.

I'm really interested to see what comes of this. Can the SEC file against a subreddit?

>>8225

It seems like on the face of it it would be absurd, it's less coordinated but more visible than other blocs. Wish that mod hadn't posted on twitter, it all seemed fun until then.

Anyone dipping a toe in this? Obviously dangerous expecting these relatively short returns, but this could be a phenomenon that never happens on such scale again.

>>8226

I bought in at 18 and sold on the first spike at 28 because I'm a moron, then bought in again at 38 and sold at 62 because that's when etoro closed trading.

Reckon I'll buy in again at 60 because I see it going to 100 before this is over and over the course of the past year wanking is yielding severely diminishing returns with regards to dopamine release in my brain.

>>8226

I bought in at 20 based on the initial short squeeze chatter. I should have bought more than I did, really, but I'm not complaining. Will likely hold all next week. I'm holding out hope that it reaches the same silly levels the VW squeeze did, though I will not lose sleep over "only" tripling my money if I close at numbers like we did today.

The one I'm expecting to retire on is still PLTR. Or a certain northern airline that's doing well even during a pandemic that I cannot legally tell you to buy.

>>8225

It will be funny if they do 'then this self-professed army of retards and autists proclaimed they would send this stock to the moon'.

There is considerable evidence that hedges were naked short selling which is very illegal and complaints have been made to the SEC regarding this.

Michael Burry called the situation in March of last year, so I think reddit is getting way too much credit for this

>>8229

>Michael Burry called the situation in March of last year, so I think reddit is getting way too much credit for this

This is fair, though I think it can't be argued against that the momentum was built on reddit.

>>8230
Actually the tipping point was Cramer talking about it after arguing with people on Twitter but same diff.

Everything is connected.

>>8229
>There is considerable evidence that hedges were naked short selling
This is typically how short squeezes tend to work. There are sell orders in for more shares than can actually be acquired, prices rise on the buy-backs, then the shorts can't cover their positions because nobody's selling. The exact same thing happened to Volkswagen a few years ago, when Porsche used options to huff VOW when the shorts piled in, resulting in a squeeze that briefly made it the most valuable company in the world.

>>8232 continued
On further research, at one point there were short positions on 144% of the issued shares in GameStop. It's impossible to back that fully, by definition, so clearly at least a third of that must have been naked.

Got a spare few hundred bob. I'd not planned on looking into trading until the house was sorted, and nothing short term, but lurking wsb has basically just been for the craic until this point. Now I feel like I just want to walk into the casino with £500 and leave my card at home.

Does anyone have a suggestion on where I could find the steps to put my money to short term, high risk work on this GME thing?

>>8234

I think it's too late to go to work on the GME thing, but if it hits $60 you can expect it to hit $100. Ryan Cohen is projecting $169, but people will realise gains at a prices lower than this. The market closed last week on a jump of 10% in an hour and the price dropped following that.

I'm long on BB, GEVO, BNGO, PLTR and expect significant movement soon, but nothing like GME has seen.

>>8235
>BNGO

Confess - you initially looked into that because you could tell people you won money on bingo.

>>8236
Bingo.

But seriously, the company is a new player in the genomics space. Other established companies like ILMN and TXG are doing R&D focusing on increasing coverage and fidelity. While Nanopore technology will ultimately be the gold standard genomic technology (see: Oxford Nanopore Technologies) for the forseeable future once it surpasses existing PCR based techniques, BNGO's Saphyr tech can take lower resolution pictures of the genome faster and potentially cheaply enough to be employed in routine clinical practice.
There was a recent paper using the platform to diagnose autism, they are currently working on seeing if it can be used to predict who will have severe outcomes following COVID infection. The applications for this kind of diagnostic approach has great potential in a wide range of diseases.

Initially the ARK investors were cold on the company, but have since made comments indicating interest. If ARKW takes it up as a holding the price will likely jump. I think they are planning on offering additional shares at discount to institutions which will likely tank the price in the short term.

I'm a science wonk and have done some OG sequencing and NGS work previously and believe in the future of the tech although this company is potentially a risky pick. Most of my holdings are in boring/safe/established Biotech companies, but this one has a lot of room to grow. PACB is another meme gene stock in this sphere but given its recent parabolic growth I think I was too late to this particular party.Woof!

The ~£221 in my Trading212 account on Friday is now up to ~£262 at the minute. Lads, how do I stop myself from getting carried away and pumping all of my cash holdings into shares I know nothing about?

>>8238

Haha.

First piece of advice is not to take financial advice from anonymous strangers online.

Second would be not to put more into the market than you can afford to lose. Who knows how long this bubble will last?

Third don't invest in things you don't understand. Good gamblers tend to know a bit about the horses they are betting on beyond their names.

finviz.com is a good site for reading up on individual shares.

'A Random Walk Down Wall Street' is a classic investing book
'The Intelligent Investor' is a good, more recent book on the topic which details a defensive investment strategy.
'Quantitative Momentum' is one I read recently which I have been using to interpret charts.

>>8239
I'm "down" to ~£247 so that has tempered some of my enthusiasm. My problem is that I have poor impulse control and can get carried away.

I'll keep with the stocks I have for now and next time I'm looking for something new I'll analyse the hivemind:

https://swaggystocks.com/dashboard/wallstreetbets/ticker-sentiment

>>8240

Cool site, but for all the stocks I looked at the reddit peak interest follows the market action (reddit interest doesn't appear to cause share price increase). Peak reddit interest tends to be followed by a plateau in share price.

I'd like to see a similar site for 4chan /biz/ stock mentions

I'd also like to see cluster analysis regarding which stocks are mentioned in the same place/by the same people

This is pretty interesting too
https://www.highshortinterest.com/

2021 is the year that Bitcoin millionaires from 4chan accidentally initiated an international, decentralized, non-linear hedge fund waging war against aggressive short sellers. It's behaving like an egregore.

Had $8 left in my Revolut, so bought some GME. I have no idea what I'm doing, but if I can turn it into £20 then curly wurlies are on me.

>>8242

$320 premarket lad. Mine's a Wispa.

>>8239
>'A Random Walk Down Wall Street' is a classic investing book

Agree - it's a really good book.

I've got about £75 spare. Do I join the GME train or have I left it too late? I decided against it on Friday afternoon when it was at about $60 and I do have a habit of thinking I've missed the boat followed by things continuing to go up and up.

Can't even afford half a share as that's currently £110.

>>8246
Wanna go halves?

>>8247
I can't even get on Trading212 now. Looks like it's down.

It's down. They can't cope with demand.

https://twitter.com/Trading212/status/1354433568521519105

>>8242
>>8243
If I cash out now, it's £12.20. It seems the meteoric rise is slowing?

Do I hold tight with that £12 or take out my initial investment of 2 meal deals (or 12 cans of tesco's cheapest cider) and leave the other £6 to do what it may?

>>8249
etoro too.

>>8250
Just refreshed and now I'm down to £5. I don't think I could handle doing this with real amounts of money.

>>8245
>>8246
I say no and at most get out before Friday. Although I've said no everyday because this is completely irrational and you're following the crowd on a stock that is already obscenely overvalued.

My more general advice is get £35 more and use it on a low-cost corporate bond index tracker. I don't think I'm a madman for realising the bullrun will end by Spring when reality starts to bite and retail investors who have stuck way too much of their savings on tech stocks cash out because they need to pay rent. Defence now, risky bullshit later. You might have enough for a chomp by the year's end.

>>8252
Doing it with real amounts of money, on real stocks, doesn't feel anything like this to be honest. Enjoy the fun while it lasts, and you're not on the losing side.

I'm not involved but it seems that now is the worst time to get involved because the whole internet is getting excited about this shit.

>>8254

This. Usually it's just putting money somewhere and forgetting about it for a few months, not this madness.

>>8255

Believe it or not, it's still going to go up. Impossible to tell by how much, but there's still millions of $20-40 shorts out there. Usually when the shoeshine boy gives you stock tips you know to get out, but for once there's no trick, the shorts have to cover, the only thing we don't know is where the peak is or how fast it'll wind back down.

However, the people on the losing side of this are huge and have friends in high places. They already appear to be lying to CNBC about big firms closing - the volume doesn't back this up.

>>8256
I'm just idly observing this thread and jumping in because I don't understand - "it's still going to go up ... there's still millions of $20-40 shorts out there ... the shorts have to cover" - sorry I'm not following, I thought the shorts having to cover would mean that they are selling now, so why would that drive the price up? Or are you saying that it needs to go up further in order to force them to cover and Reddit aren't done yet?

Sorry ignore me, I'm being an idiot and forgot what shorting means. They have to buy the stock back at a loss and that will drive it higher.

>>8256
>Believe it or not
No. Remember the advice given in this thread and the other; don't invest in things you don't understand. I'm doing that. You might make money investing now, you might not. But investing now is the wrong thing to do, because it's still up in the air.

I'm going to split what I was going to put in GME 50:50 into two of these. Which should I go for:-

Aalberts NV (AALB) - a Dutch water technology company.

Clean Harbors Inc (CLH) - A US hazardous waste company.

Rayonier Inc (RYN) - A sustainable timber company.

PTC Inc (PTC) - A CAD software developer.

NIBE Industrier AB (NIBE) - A Swedish heat pump manufacturer.

Ivanhoe Mines (IVN) - A Canadian mining company looking to plunder Africa.

Vocera Communications (VCRA) - Something to do with healthcare and voice recognition.

Vapotherm (VAPO) - Specialise in treating respiratory diseases.

Lyra Therapeutics (LYRA) - Specialise in ear, nose and throat treatment.

These are all complete and utter punts.

>>8259

That's fair. I'm not telling anyone to do anything, particularly if their only understanding comes from an imageboard post saying "no really guys".

>>8260
>Ivanhoe Mines (IVN) - A Canadian mining company looking to plunder Africa.

Um... maybe not them.

>>8260

>Clean Harbors Inc (CLH) - A US hazardous waste company.

That one stood out to me, assuming they deal with nuclear. That's a problem that's been needed to be dealt with for decades, and is only really starting to make progress now. I imagine any company with solutions to nuclear waste would be a solid bet.

I know nothing of the company though, for the love of good do your own research.

>>8260


Sciencelad here. Def not VAPO or LYRA as they are trending down. VCRA looks ok. The first two don't really have any drugs in the pipeline and what they do have is unlikely to succeed in the coming years, and if it does it's unlikely to take market share from existing similar things.

VCRA is trending upwards really nicely, but it's not going to get any crazy momentum. Telemedicine is very vogue in terms of tech innovation, it's a lot easier to deliver than pharma type stuff. This company appears to be making a system so mums can skype with their newborns in hospital and you know what women are like when it comes to spending all their money on babies.

>>8260
£$€¥ is getting out of hand now. Do more research on the businesses until you know you have an undervalued sure thing, if you don't know then at best leave it in a cheap tracker until you do.

Part of that can involve drawing up a long-term plan for your portfolio based on broader assumptions - rising renewables would be a safe bet with COP26 this year but equally I suspect the likes of BP is seriously undervalued by wishful thinking.

>>8266

>BP

Praps, but with the price of oil dropping and the massive sustained reduction in consumption due to covid, and that 'oil is a safe bet' is priced in to these chairs, and the EV tipping point that we seem to be reaching, and all the laws and regulations regarding carbon emissions the oil boys might be on the way out.

The Biden administration is replacing the presidential fleet with electric cars.
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/01/weekly-planet-why-biden-is-buying-645000-new-cars/617828/

FedEx is supposedly making the switch to EVs made by GM.

When I lived in China, nobody had petrol scooters everybody had ebikes. Uptake of electric cars there has less resistance culturally and from baron types. Air pollution is so bad in some places at some times of the year that environmentalism is one of the biggest political issues for the people who live there.

>>8263>>8264
Thanks, lads.

>>8266
This is fun money for a bit of a punt. I'm not gambling with my life savings.

>>8266
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-01-28/biden-s-early-climate-blitz-goes-faster-further-than-expected
Oil may not be the best bet right now.

>>8266
Can you help me, I invested in a SPY but he's not contacted me yet.

>>8267

>The Biden administration is replacing the presidential fleet with electric cars.
>https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/01/weekly-planet-why-biden-is-buying-645000-new-cars/617828/

It's a democrat country now. Place your bets on the companies with mates in the Dems.

https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/nancy-pelosi-discloses-1-million-call-options-tesla-stock-2021-1-1029998372

For a minute I actually thought it was about the environment too.

Robinhood is trending as they've apparently stopped individual investors buying GME and a bunch of others that have been shorted.

>>8272
Trading212 have done it for GME and AMC. My BlackBerry holding has gone from +100% to +38% in the space of about a day.

>>8272>>8273

What's their reason/excuse for doing this? I don't see how stopping your users from buying but not from selling is anything other than market manipulation?

>>8274
T212 have said they're protecting investors from risk due to some funds having unprecedented volatility. I think part of it is because their website has been known to go down due to struggling with demand.

My BB position is now down to +14%. Fucking hell.

>>8275

That's a bit ridiculous, the only way to protect investors from risk is to not be a broker at all, and this is certainly a bit rich coming from a brokerage all to happy to offer a 90% chance of loss on CFDs any other day of the week.

I assume BB is tanking because the people that can still buy GME are dumping the former to buy the latter in a mad panic. It's a bit mental to see so much interest suddenly directed to trading in general, and seeing one huge event in one stock affect the whole market like this. I do wonder/worry for all the people with brand new accounts who might think this is how investing works.

>>8275
These trading apps were all founded to take advantage of retail investors to the benefit of big hedge funds. Their statement is exactly correct, but the investors mentioned are not the app users. The app users are the product, not the customer.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffkauflin/2020/08/19/the-inside-story-of-robinhoods-billionaire-founders-option-kid-cowboys-and-the-wall-street-sharks-that-feed-on-them/

Their customers are the same hedge funds that are now getting squeezed shorting GME.

>>8277

>These trading apps were all founded to take advantage of retail investors to the benefit of big hedge funds. Their statement is exactly correct, but the investors mentioned are not the app users.

Excellent way of putting it. I'll be stealing this to sound clever to my friends.

>>8277

I know it's a trite thing to say but the house doesn't like it when they start losing. Any casino in the world will ask you to leave if you start winning too much, whether you're cheating or not. The game's rigged Insert shitty "Always Has Been" meme here .

Fuck it, I'm doubling down on BB and putting some in Nokia because they've mainly crashed as Seppos can't trade them on the likes of Robinhood.

>>8279

My £6.50 of GME was briefly £9.50, and is now about £3.10. what a rollercoaster.

>>8280

Nokia might actually be the worst punt of all time. Godspeed you utter madlad.

I need to get in on this but I'm lazy and I'd probably fuck it up.

>>8282
Nokia was around $4.20 per share on Friday before jumping to a high of $7.33 yesterday. Americans can't trade in it at the moment and it's fallen to $4.68. Likewise, BB reached a high of $28.26 yesterday and now it's down to $14.10.

When the Americans are able to trade again in these stocks I expect them to shoot up again, but this is more of a hunch than anything.

I put a few quid into ETH and doge coins. All these redditors with newfound fortunes are going to do something with the money they don't immediately spend on vinyl figurines. Not a terrible bet that they'll go up.

>>8285
I mined thousands of Dogecoin back at the start. Have the wallet.dat on an old HDD so will be spending the evening finding out if I've got a pre-booked seat on the rocket.

You're watching history in the making here lads.

Ted Cruz is argreeing with AOC on Twitter for calling foul on the Robinhood malarky.

Even the app's name is pretty unfortunate given what is playing out here.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q82twrdr0U

Seems as though Robinhood is maybe selling people's stocks against their will.
This, and them refusing to let people buy the stock doesn't surprise me. Something like this was inevitable. What's going to be interesting to see is how angry this makes people and what it motivates them to do.

I've made almost £5 in dogecoin in the past two hours. I can see how this is addictive.

The thing I've found out with this, or at least when things are as volatile as they are, is that you need to make snap decisions, and you need to give it basically undivided attention. Thinking of putting another tenner into GME even though I'm down at the moment because surely the angry reddit septics will find a way to buy it, and when they do, we can upgrade to a box of Celebrations... each.

>>8288
What's your long term plan for Dogecoin?
I'm convinced it's just a pump and dump, but I wonder where it's going to end up.

>>8290
I might try to take the value of my initial investment back out tomorrow if it hasn't been dumped, no plan beyond that.

So, uh .. how do you buy and sell crypto coins?
Is there a central market for them where you can list buy and sell orders, interpret market data, etc or do you watch forums & chat rooms to personally arrange transactions?

How'd you get the cryptocoin into a regular bank account?

I'd like to get into the former without the risk of it affecting my benefit claims, like i assume stock marketing would.

>>8292
You can just buy and sell them on crypto exchanges.
Here's a list of some.
https://cryptohead.io/uk/best-exchanges/
I don't know about doing benefit fraud with it though.

It's quite disheartening to think, the same people who pumped and dumped throughout the crash with impunity and generally profited on human misery for decades, will be pressuring for market reform overnight because Reddit made one stock into a meme. And they'll get it.

It's sad because this could be big. Revolution in the old sense of the word may be impossible but there's a glimmer of hope here that collectively, ordinary people can beat the elites at their own game. This is class consciousness gone viral.

>>8294
Exactly.

I was reading about how Citadel (the firm that bailed out Melvin Capital to the tune of a couple billion the other day) are the platform that Robinhood (the largest US brokerage app) trades through. 40% of Citadel's revenue is via Robinhood.

Apparently the block on trade's came through due to pressure from Citadel, and they reupped on their shorts before the app removed the option to buy from retail investors.

This is undeniable market manipulation on the part of Citadel, and it's going to be tricky to blame this on retail investors without significant far-reaching long-term political implications.

The business models of these apps is that they collect data on you and use it to inform their investing decisions. Surveillance Capitalism in its purest form. Ironically the system these Surveillance Capitalists are creating is a trap that will eventually capture them also.

Like right now the firms are trying to short-term fuck with the market to cover their positions and just about making it, but longer term the position is untenable. This is the Aesop's Fable type example that history books will use to explain the prevailing trends of global politics in the wake of the next inevitable revolution.

A small cabal of elites abuses their position of privilege and power to exploit the masses. When the masses adapt and overcome the system is modified or obstructed to prevent the correction. All it's going to do is make those already with a grievance recalcitrant.

The people participating in the market largely believe the neoliberal rhetoric spewed by politicians for decades and are trying to improve their lot by participating in the system.

It's not a market, it's a shell game.

The same people who have crashed the economy 50 times in their lifetime are going to call foul because a bunch of nerds saved one struggling brick-and-mortar video game retailer.

This is a fight against principalities and evil doers and unclean spirits

American Millennials getting politically radicalised by a stock brokerage app is the most 2020s vibe yet.

>>8295
You need a copyeditor because you said the same thing several times.

>>8296

Sure, but anything worth saying was said centuries ago and everything since is just variations on a theme.

-Ecclesiastes probably

>>8295
>>8294

Have they started alleging it's Trump supporters and racist ne'er-do-wells behind it yet?

It tickles me that the /r/Stonks lot seem to think that the suspension of GME on Robinhood is some kind of conspiracy, rather than a completely routine response to weird trading. They might not believe it, but Robinhood is acting in the interests of their customers by refusing to execute really stupid transactions - anyone going long on GME in the last few days is on the losing end of a Ponzi scheme.

Institutional shorts have lost a lot of money over the past couple of days, but a lot of retail investors will lose even more. The short squeeze can't last forever, GME will eventually fall to a realistic price and a lot of people are going to lose their shirts.

>>8299

No shit, but at this point I don't think anyone is pretending the money is the important bit.

The important bit is how well it's demonstrating how exactly the things you point out are fine when certain people do it, but when normal people collectively do it, it's cheating.

>>8299

Shorts don't get to cover instantly and all at once, you'd have to be asleep for days to miss being profitable in a short squeeze. Besides, that's what sell and stop limits are for. Either you're running a free market or you're not, and in my ten years of investing no brokerage has ever blocked my transactions or changed their margins during a halt and sold my positions for me.

They're acting in the interests of their customers, for sure. But retail investors are not the customers. And it's hardly just silly redditors that think this is a conspiracy, look in this thread - there's cross party support for investigating robinhood for this.

>>8299
>Institutional shorts have lost a lot of money over the past couple of days, but a lot of retail investors will lose even more

They'd have been on track to lose a lot more if they weren't able to bring the price of GME down yesterday.

>>8299

Could you explain to me how a short squeeze is a ponzi scheme?

I was right. The king of the reddit nerds pumped doge overnight so it tripled in value (for a bit). I was able to take out slightly more than I put in and still have more than that left in the account.

>>8304

Well played lad. I will never have the stones for speculative crypto.

Sigh.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-55849192

Decided to jump on the meme train overnight. Threw in £100. It's currently worth £56.08. When is this thing supposed to head for the moon again?

>>8307
Doge? It's trending downwards now. Probably best to try and forget about it for a few weeks, months or until you see people getting excited about it again.

Elon Musk just changed his twitter bio to #Bitcoin

Make of that what you will.

>>8307
It was already 1000% up on its month-ago price when you bought. Why would it increase any more? Do you believe in the business? It sells xbox controllers and Fallout bobble-heads.

>>8311

>Why would it increase any more?

Because there's still billions of dollars in naked shorts?

>>8313

Ask Phil Falcone.

>>8310
Look, the GameStop thing makes sense, it's fighting against hedge funds making money off of a failing company. But I can't see the same justification for getting involved with cryptocurrencies. They are barely currencies at all, given they aren't backed by anything and don't have normal circulation. It's just speculation, the thing the GameStop squeeze was meant to stop. Who's the enemy when it comes to crypto, who am I fighting by buying Bitcoin or Dogecoin? If I make any money from crypto is it coming from a hedge fund or off the back of some other poor sap who didn't close quickly enough?

>>8315

Elon is just a bored billionaire troll, presumably just testing the waters to see how much money a tweet can make him.

I just see trading crypto as forex but riskier, and if you'd told me ten years ago you'd invented a market riskier than forex I'm not sure I'd have believed you. If you believe in the idea of a decentralised currency then that is the fight, but as long as we keep speculating BTC and treating it like a stock we're not going to actually be able to use it as a legitimate currency anyway.

Apparently there's 11million options that expire on BlackBerry today if the share price is below $15 and hedge funds will have to pay out on all of them if the share price is at least $30.

Notification from T212 that they've enabled trading in GameStop and AMC today, but earning there could be lengthy execution disruptions to buy and sell orders.

Turns out FreeTrade have been waiting to validate me for over a year. Oops.

How are you guys doing this? We don't have Robin Hood over here, I'm basically the only person I know that's heard of FreeTrade. Are people just using real brokers like AJ Bell? Obviously a bit late now but I don't want to get *ahem* caught short next time something like this happens, assuming wall street doesn't throw a paddy.

My DOGE have recovered to £72. I might actually get my original investment back by the end of today.

>>8316

>presumably just testing the waters to see how much money a tweet can make him

There's an SEC injunction banning him from tweeting about stonks.

>>8319
There isn't going to be a next time. I can't see there being a situation like this again where short interest is at ~140%.

>>8322
>I can't see there being a situation like this again
People said the same thing after the Porsche "infinity squeeze" but here we are.

>>8320
You could just put up an offer to sell your DOGE for £100 now. It'll sit there until they're worth that much then sell as soon as it reaches that point.

>>8322
That's what I'm concerned about. Well, I mean a bit late now, but yeah I'm assuming there will be a tectonic shift that will make things like this much less possible.

I remember speaking to .gs people about bitcoin back when it was still being used to buy pizza. I'm not the quickest off the block.

>>8323
The VW squeeze didn't involve millions of internet autists who are actively looking to cripple hedge funds.

>>8319

I have a real broker but the UK options to go for seem to be eToro and Trading 212. I haven't put much research in but they're both zero commission.

>>8326
Instead it involved a couple of hard-headed business owners who were actively trying to cripple hedge funds. What's your point?

>>8325

The right thing to do would be to shore up the holes that allow a stock to still be nakedly shorted, despite that already being illegal in and of itself. That would be a Good Thing for any level of investor, even the big hedge funds if they're being honest with themselves.

What will actually probably happen is some sort of law that restricts retail trading volume, because that's the nightmare world we live in.

With cross party support though, and the likes of AOC being really rather angry about robinhood, we might actually see a financial rule that benefits more than just the very top of the pile, but this is still america we're talking about.

>>8328

Business owners are rich, so they can do what they want.

Nokia is up 10% today. The Milky Bars are on me.

>>8327
>Trading 212
Fuck me I get their YouTube ads constantly.

>>8332
is that one of those trading ads that's aimed at MEN so it's all SHOUTING and TESTOSTERONE?

>>8333
What? No. It's just a Peter Serafinowicz soundalike telling you how easy it is to invest one pound.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlxeSs62OaI.

If you aren't blocking ads you aren't even human.

>>8335
I switched computer a few times at work, and was a bit lazy about adblock. Getting ads during relaxing music, or expecting to hear one thing and then getting some jarring tune, are fucking tortuous. It's disgusting how things have gone. I wonder if adblockers have pre-emptively placated some of the potentially most vocal critics of ad dominance on the net.

>>8336
>I switched computer a few times at work, and was a bit lazy about adblock.

I'm not sure what you're hoping to get out of it but I don't believe this cock and bull story for a second. Bet you don't have admin privileges and can't work out ad blocking on yer phone.

>>8337

TBF you don't even need admin privileges to install a new browser with all the extensions you want. If push comes to shove a zipped up Firefox portable with all the trimmings downloaded from your email will do in a pinch.

>>8337
I'm just incredibly lazy and worked for a family firm with eccentric management practice. We overhired before covid and I had WFH priority, so I was hotdesking when I did come in, and gave up on bothering to set up on every browser for various reasons.

I'm not sure what you're hoping to get out of this. I bet you stick your cock in USB ports.

My over 100% gain in BlackBerry on Wednesday has currently turned into a 3% loss on my investment. Fucking hell.

>>8340
Marathon, not a sprint. Though that said, you're dealing with something volatile.

Not sure what to do with my Dogecoin now. I mined them at the start as part of the joke, and them got bored.

This madness prompted me to recover the wallet and transfer them into a trading account. Not sure whether to just cash out and blow my winnings on a takeaway and some toy soldiers, or swap them for a tiny subfraction of a Bitcoin.

>>8342

It's clearly volatile in a way that BTC isn't any more. In your position I'd cash out enough for one of those things as a treat and keep the rest just in case the people trying to pump it succeed.

If I plan to cash out from this stocks trading and have only made a fiver, do I need to fill in any forms for HMRC? The US w8-ben form has already been filled in, so I don't think I need to declare anything else (i.e. below the CGT threshold). Can I just cash out and not worry?

Cheers lads.

https://globalfinancialdata.com/the-piggly-crisis

This GME thing isn't a new phenom for Wall Street. There is nothing new under the sun.

>>8344
>do I need to fill in any forms for HMRC?

No.
https://www.rossmartin.co.uk/private-client-a-estate-planning/capital-gains-tax/3350-reporting-capital-gains

>>8345
Personally I'm looking forward to GME investors losing all their money. They've become quite insufferable.

>>8342
I'm getting really tired of this. Bitcoin seemed like a curiosity, and now they are worth millions. Dogecoin seemed like quite an explicit joke, and now it's worth millions.

So fuck it, the next time something comes along I can invest in, and I feel dismissing it as a joke, I'll put like a tenner in and hold it for ten years just in case it blows up. That's what the hedge funds do right?

>>8347
I heard about bitcoin on .gs when people were still buying pizza with it :/ I console myself by assuming I would have left my wallet on the HDD which my mum chucked out.

The more disposable income you have and the more reliable your ideally growing income stream is, the more retarded punts you can take.

>>8348
I had a quarter of a buttcoin on a hard drive which failed around 2010 or so. I console myself in the knowledge i'd have sold it at $100 or $1000 - I definitely wouldn't still be hanging on to it now.

>>8349

If by any chance you still have the hard drive, the data is probably recoverable.

>>8352
I don't unfortunately, but it was a mechanical failure, I recall hearing a horrible mechanical screech. I don't know how much platter scanning costs these days, but I suppose if I was still on there it'd be worth recovering as long as the wallet.dat wasn't under the head. Ah well.

I know it's probably too late, but I think I'm going to try and buy the dip on GameStop tomorrow.

I've saved up enough money over lockdown that I'm not going to spend on anything better, so it shouldn't matter if I lose it all.

I want to believe the WallStreetBets shills who are sure the hedgefunds haven't covered their shorts, but who the fuck knows.

I sold 275 dogecoin last night and used the profit from that to buy 375 this morning. Is there any reason not to just keep doing that?

>>8354
Don't do it, lad. The speculative bubble is going to burst and all that's going to happen is the money moving to Blackrock. The amount of people who are going to get badly burnt by this madness and wishful thinking is ridiculous.

>so it shouldn't matter if I lose it all

It's money ffs. At a minimum make another bet so you can play out the fun for longer. Saab are going to post their earnings mid-month or you can look at what is trending and Reddit and gamble that the users will never cash out on anything.

>>8355
Dogecoin will go back to being worthless when people forget about it. A short bet if there ever was one.

>>8346
Does it count as income from outside the UK? I think the W-8BEN means it doesn't. If it does then I need to do an SA, I think.

All my googling around this is clear as milk. Never again, all this for a fiver.

>>8356

If it's true that the short interest is still > 100% and the hedgefunds are still in the game it seems a fairly safe bet that the short squeeze hasn't happened yet, right? Obviously I will plan an exit strategy to get out before it collapses.

I like to think I am hedged by my bets on the FTSE and gold & silver...

>>8357
Asked HMRC, I don't. Nice.

>>8357
The foreign capital gains declaration is for when you've already paid CGT abroad (e.g. IRS) and is again above the threshold. There's a form you fill out over the threshold with a section for it.

>>8358
Depends on who you ask. The MSM will tell you that has already happened and was why there was a price spike on midweek when all the shares were bought back. The internet will tell you that it's all bollocks and there were loads of hands on this short that have yet to cash.

At a minimum use common sense and hold until tomorrow afternoon given opening market volatility. If GME sees a steep decline in value then I see it tipping into a panic where the sharks will beat you. A fair amount of people will have stepped away from the hype over the weekend and done some clearer thinking.

>I like to think I am hedged by my bets on the FTSE and gold & silver...

You'll want to diversify away from the FTSE with US and Nikkei equities. Not totally (and the CPTTP will give a bump) but the FTSE is a bit shit and you can only get away with one market when you're talking about the US economy.

Precious metals are a mugs game if you ask me - too volatile to do the job of bonds, good for inflation and gold frankly behaved odd last year. Although full disclosure I wouldn't touch them anyway as I find directly speculating on the price of natural resources a bit distasteful.

>>8360

This is all useful advice thanks. The sentiment I'm seeing online would suggest that people are intent on holding GME, but who knows that for everyone saying they will hold there are plenty more preparing to cash out?

Talking out my arse here, but I might buy GME if it dips <300 (perhaps around 270), though I feel like if it goes below 200 again its probably game over.

I think I'll probably buy some AMC as well because it's cheap and why the fuck not. I'm split on whether it is more likely to be a distraction from GME or potentially the next short squeeze though.

On the FTSE and precious metals I'm mainly just buying on the expectation that inevitable further rounds of QE will keep pushing them higher. Plus I'm too lazy/stupid to work out what specific stocks are good buys.

>>8361
>This is all useful advice thanks. The sentiment I'm seeing online would suggest that people are intent on holding GME, but who knows that for everyone saying they will hold there are plenty more preparing to cash out?

Thankfully(ish) some people are getting a bit wrapped up in their own hype, so I think you'll see a decent amount of people holding because they want to support the higher ideal, meanwhile the rest of us can hopefully cash out leaving them holding the bag.

>>8358

http://isthesqueezesquoze.com/

I wouldn't be throwing any money after the GME thing now, but I would be holding if I had shares in hand.

I felt really ill on Thursday/Friday after the actions of Robinhood. I'd long known the asymmetry in power structures between the wealthy and the rest of us, but it was really weird seeing the rules changed in a limited and specific way in real-time to protect hedge funds.

It's a cringe analogy, but it made me think of the bit in Avengers where Thanos gets the reality stone and as the avengers are winning he just warps reality around them to be the victor.

Capitalist power structures act like the Allied Mastercomputer from Ellison's 'I have no mouth and I must scream'. You have to participate in the system and have to believe that you can succeed within the rule set but actually if you pose any real threat to the status quo, or manage to rise above your current class and status the rules will be rejigged immediately to put the boot back on your throat.

I'm still holding my BB and NOK because I think they are good long-term investments despite getting swept up in the reddit hysteria, but the events of the past week have really soured me on the idea of investing in the stock market.

>>8363

Yeah I've been looking at that website, but I'm a bit concerned by the variations in short interest. How do we know the hedge funds haven't closed their positions and new shorts haven't just been opened by retail investors etc?

I did actually buy (through IG, so not the actual share) on Thursday but I panic sold after I saw the Robinhood stuff and lost a few hundred quid, which hurt a bit. Obviously in hindsight I should have held, but it felt like the game was up at the time.

Thankfully at this point I don't think I'm in it for the money. My future is financially secure(!) and I'm just having fun with lockdown savings I would have wasted on something else.

Though as much as I hope the 'little guy' wins, I'm conscious that whatever happens, in the end the big winners are gonna be the pros on Wall Street.

>>8363

I used to do "Matched Betting", which is basically a technique whereby you exploit the free bets offers by online bookmakers by hedging your bets using betting exchange sites like Betfair to basically make guaranteed free money. It's perfectly legal, but since the strategy generally involves placing bets at the most generous prices that the bookmaker is currently offering, their accounts team will quickly cotton on that you're a savvy punter and will ban your account, usually mentioning some bollocks about "suspicious betting patterns". I've been banned from pretty much every major online bookie in the country simply for making small bets at their most attractive prices; sometimes I'd get banned when my bets didn't even win. The moment your betting patterns prove to the accounts team that you're not just some idiot throwing away money on overly-ambitious accas they will ban you in an instant.

Even if you're a mug playing the slot machines who somehow manages to win the jackpot they'll screw you over, there was a case in the High Court last year where a player won a £1.7 million jackpot on a Betfair online slot and they refused to pay out, claiming it was a "computer glitch". Gambling, like the stock market, is a game where the house always wins, and even if by some miracle you manage to beat the house, they'll magically change the rules and tell you that, actually, you lost.

>>8367

Thanks fir sharing.

You are not wrong in your comparing of the stock market to a casino, but the whole idea of free-market capitalism is predicated on the idea that markets are efficient and in fact, the most efficient way to optimize an economy and therefore society.

If the stock market is a glorified casino, and a rigged ine at that, it gives a whole lot less legitimacy to the existing neoliberal status quo.

Why should tax payers bail out a casino?
Why should COVID-19 welfare be given to a casino?
Hopefully this raises consciousness and gives humanistic politics (as opposed to 'market uber alles') some momentum in the coming years. I'm doubtful though as most people are mongs conditioned by social media to be either useful idiots or common-or-garden idiots

>>8368

>Why should tax payers bail out a casino?

The stock market isn't a casino. Buying a share means literally buying a part of a company, usually including voting rights over that company's decisions. The /r/WallStreetBets lot seem to have lost sight of that, which is why a lot of them don't realise that they're in deep trouble.

When a share price drops, it reflects the legitimate belief of the market that a company is going to be less profitable in the future. The GME shorts reflected an entirely reasonable belief that a mall-based games retailer is in deep trouble in a time when malls are dying and games are moving away from physical media. GME shares were trading at about $18 because that's what the market realistically believed that the business was worth.

A small number of speculators accurately identified that institutional short-sellers had shorted an excessively large proportion of GME shares and would be unable to cover their positions; these speculators have profited at the expense of the hedge funds. A much larger group of fools have paid well above the odds to buy a piece of a dying company.

The efficient market hypothesis is much more subtle than the idea that markets always get it right - it's the idea that pricing in a market is naturally self-correcting over time, largely because of speculators, arbitrageurs and short-sellers. Few if any economists believe that markets are always efficient, just that they trend towards efficiency over time. Thaler and Kahneman won the Nobel Memorial Prize for identifying irrationalities in the behaviour of market participants that cause exceptions to the EMH.

None of this madness meaningfully affects the underlying reality of GameStop's business and most of the people who are currently long on GME will lose a lot of money; if you made investment decisions based on a meme, that's very much your own stupid problem.

Buy-and-hold value investors are largely oblivious to this whole mess, because they're heavily diversified - buying a little bit of everything spreads your risk and insulates you from the day-to-day whims of speculators. They've been taking a real beating over the past year, but that reflects the ground truth of a massive economic slowdown due to Covid. The vast majority of the money in the market is being managed in an utterly boring manner even during crises, but that never makes the news because "Large Pension Fund Owns a Little Bit of Everything" isn't much of a headline.

>>8369

Saying it's basically a shared delusion isn't exactly an improvement on casino.

>>8370

Nobody knows what anything is actually worth, because all value is subjective and relative. Markets are the least-worst mechanism for price discovery.

>>8364
>How do we know the hedge funds haven't closed their positions

I don't know, presumably the same way people knew that GME had been heavily shorted in the first place? I don't understand where this information comes from.

>>8369

You say it isn't like a casino. Then you confirm their entire point by talking about how it is a speculative bubble divorced from reality.