Back in 2008 I had 200 shares of NVDA that I bought for something around $8.50 per. I sold it all in 2010 to finance the down payment on my house. Those 200 shares would have been 800 shares today...at $857 each. The shares I sold to make a $3k down payment on my house would now be worth something around $685,000 if I had held. Hindsight can be a PITA sometimes.

ETF? One of the miners? Actual bitcoin? How long do you plan to hold the NVDA? Is it a true hold play or are you actively monitoring and managing it? Always curious to see how others are approaching the current environment. The market performance is definitely not what the average person is experiencing in the economy these days. Going to be interesting all year since the election politics will also have an influence.

NVDA blew me away with the last quarter with profits going from $1B a quarter to $12B. People will get squirrly and some will get shaken out. I guess it all comes down to how real this AI thing is. That's what is buttering their bread, and right now there is a lot of hype on AI and I use it a lot and it is pretty cool. I use it to write marketing copy for my business a lot and it is pretty damn good. It saves me a lot of time on first drafts. I edit what it writes, but is pretty good. Could it be overhyped? Yes. Before AI they were the main chip for Bitcoin mining I think, so they seem to be ahead of the curve in general. Jensen Huang seems like a super smart guy and founded that company 30 years ago. As long as he is there I think it is in good hands. He's not old either, maybe 60. BTC is a put option on the US Dollar, so I don't think I will sell that until Washington learns to live on a budget, which is likely never.

I tend to look more short term as it suits my style for stocks. I love looking at the patterns and trends. It would not surprise me to see it consolidate at some point like it did the second half of last year (when it was bouncing between $400-500). That would be a good sign before the next leg up. But until that happens it will be interesting to see what it does and how volatile the action is. The next two weeks should be very telling for what comes next (especially with the Fed talking next week).

No judgement either way. I'm just thinking that at my age, 53, I don't think I have the balls to try that, but might of when I was younger.

I think in a world of hyperinflation, this is traditionally how I think assets hold up 1. Hard money should do best, so gold and BTC, with BTC being a much better product due to it being electronic 2. Housing - reading about other big eras of hyperinflation, housing has done ok...this is why the kids will possibly have to live in Potterville forever 3. Stocks - stocks can be ok but it will be very very selective IMHO 4. Cash and bonds are a complete disaster in high inflation So, if you look at the conventional wisdom of say "as you get older go to more cash and fixed income", you might be bankrupting yourself. My parents made all these same mistakes btw. They are in their 80s and really have moved from upper middleclass to middleclass over the past 30 years cause they have missed all these bull markets. So the question could be to me, why do you think we are in hyperinflation? I think it is coming, fast. Even CNBC is finally talking about "accummlated inflation" which they always ignore. Final point-->Last quarter the gov't borrowed 2.7 dollars for every dollar of GDP growth. This is completely unsustainable. Just my $.02 ** Edited by MrBayAreaHokie at 3/11/2024, 11:41:44 AM

and adding to cash every day. Sooner or later - and it will catch everyone off guard, the major buyers of US debt are going to say we don't want anymore - get your house in order. People speculate it could be a few years, but maybe not - and when it happens everything is going down very far very fast. I've ridden that ride too many times - too old to go it again. I'll take my 5% FDIC insured CDs (I hope those will be safe?) and be happy.

The core inflation index does not include food or energy, so it is meaningless. The CPI does, but it always swaps out products when they get expensive(beef gets expensive, move to pork). Plus, the CPI does not include housing accurately at all. For example, home prices are not included and look at what has happened to mortgage costs recently. Finally, it holds the weight of rents to only a third of the index which is nuts as this is what is driving the move to people have two jobs now. Here's a guy who owns 10,000 rentals. Listen to what he says is happening to his 10,000 tenants. They all have two jobs now. Do you think that is a result of no inflation? LOL As I said in the other post, we are now borrowing 2.7 dollars for every 1 dollar of GDP growth.

Selling classes, books and making money off his brand....Not sure he helps you make your point.

You can go on youtube and find a host of economists who say the number is very high...some 10%, some 15%, some more the gov't keeps the number low so they don't have to raise SS payments...they have a giant incentive to fib it also doesn't change the fact the middle class is getting destroyed...it's so funny how people think the economy is good...it's great for rich people, but that's not most people

time too. You sound like an economic doomsday provocateur.

...that the status quo is acceptable. I won't eat that turd sandwich.

sympathetic but that is your situation. Not everyone’s

...and I didn't say everyone is struggling, but more than 50% of the country would say they are. If you disagree, I invite you to step out of your everyday circle and interact with some blue collar folks.

paycheck and have for years if not decades. Obviously that’s not good but it’s certainly not a new symptom of the economy.

...nearly 20 years into my career, I barely have any more buying power than when I was fresh out of college. I am certainly no big wig CEO, but I make a decent salary these days and have a small amount of side income, as well. My wife also works full time. We try to live responsibly and contribute to our retirement savings each month (though not nearly enough), put some money away for our daughter's education (also not enough), and pay for life insurance in case of something tragic. We live in a 50 year old ranch home and have 4 vehicles whose combined age is 67 years. I do most of my own vehicle maintenance, I repair our appliances when they break, and I do all of our home repair/renovation projects myself. We could probably live more frugally if we really did a deep analysis of our spending, but by and large, we don't live extravagantly at all. We never, ever travel. We don't go to movies, shows, or concerts. And, up until 4-5 years ago, I felt like we were in a slow, but steady path towards some financial breathing room. But over the past 5 years, we have gotten crushed by inflation, to the point that we are barely breaking even most months, or even being in the red some months. This last month has been a rough one with multiple vehicle issues (the downside of driving older vehicles). I feel fortunate to have a significant amount of money saved up by living frugally, but I seriously do not know how ANYONE in the middle or lower class is surviving right now without a "rainy day fund". I suspect credit card debt is skyrocketing right now, and I have a very, very bad feeling about how this will play out long-term. Lots of people seem to have their heads in the sand about this, either because they are somewhat insulated by being wealthy, or because they choose to turn a blind eye to avoid being confronted with the consequences of policies they support. But I think we are in for a rough ride ahead.

Pricing it for this year and the LOWEST I can get it to is $4700 for the exact same trip. 3 years ago we spent about $300 a week for groceries, now it is over $500 for the same amount of food. Workwise I do a lot of purchasing in my career and our base item costs have gone up 30-40% over the last two years across the board. Costs everywhere are shooting up faster than wages by an absurd amount and it isn't just because of "corporate greed" since margins are still mostly the same in many industries.

If I completely crash and burn, i have a house that is paid for...i'll just tell the wife we have to sell it and move that retirement community in Georgia where everyone gets gonorrhea ** Edited by MrBayAreaHokie at 3/11/2024, 11:13:44 AM

Sounds very FLA now that you mention it LOL

Up to 13.5%. Now, that's hyper inflation.

My seller wanted to help finance part of the payment. Couldn't do it.

Remember those days? Geez, the deals were so complicated. I often wondered if people really checked the math on what was being credited towards interest vs principal to see if they were getting screwed or not.

...over the life of a 30 year load, showing principle, interest, cumulative payment, etc., and we used 12% as the mortgage rate which was typical of the time period. That was the one program that stood out to me, because you ended up paying so much more over those years than you borrowed...like 4X or 5X more. Fortran with punch cards...so much fun...lol The sub 4% rate in recent years was fantastic!

I was in that first freshmen engineering class that had to buy the PCs. We had a lot of fun playing Leisure Suit Larry, Flight Sims and Loderunner in the dorms. I found Loderunner for iOS not too long ago. Still a great game.

Or, at least not to a home I can't purchase with cash. I technically have enough money stored up right now to pay off my mortgage, but it's actually earning me more in interest right now than I'm paying on my mortgage, so I'm sitting on it for now. As MBAH suggests, I'd probably be much wiser to diversify it into assets other than cash, but I'm not one to go heavy into individual stocks. I just don't have the knowledge or risk appetite to do that with significant sums of money. I could see myself purchasing an investment property if prices crash at all, but I don't really see that happening any time soon.