Category: financial musings

What the hell has been going on with RobinHood in my life? I never stopped using it. I have made 14% since the last time I checked since I opened the account. I have a lot more money in there though(relative to my life), than I first posted so I can’t post graphs and such. They have announced a couple of things that people still aren’t paying that much attention to. They will be introducing banking and I am on that wait list. I am also on the wait list for fractional share purchases but I didn’t hop on that one as fast as I did with banking. Fractional shares are a pretty big deal.

One thing that should be noted though is that the biggies have gone commission free. As far as I can tell, TD(which just got bought by Schwab), Fidelity and Etrade all went commission free. It didn’t really get that much press. But, there are a couple of other events that signify why it is a bigger deal than meets the eye.

The Chinese government recently came out in support of blockchain use. I haven’t read extensively on what they intend to do but I think it will be just a matter of time before integrating their blockchain use with a cryptocurrency that is either state sponsored or a “mainstream” one. This type of announcement goes along with Facebook’s release of Libra sometime in 2020.

Robinhood has listed cryptocurrencies for a while now but has allowed for trading in only about 5. Coinbase now allows you to stake USDC and XTZ(which deserves a separate post). All the companies involved in crypto are making incremental changes but the general public and the US government are still not onboard. Facebook will probably be the main catalyst within the US for blockchain adoption or cryptocurrency use. Bitcoin is really seeming dinosauresque in this world now but it will always stick around as an original player probably.

I am writing tonight because I am a bit pissed off. I was in the middle of consolidating 2 accounts and my funds were in flux when the market crashed the largest amount so far in 2019. I am not too surprised about that timing. I sort of expect it so I probably should have done it a bit piecemeal like I had done up to the present. I was just in this “clean-house” mode and thought I could get more efficient. That still is the idea. Both the account I was transferring from and the one I was transferring to charge commissions on trades. The account I talk about a lot on this site doesn’t and it had nothing to do with this transaction.

I’d like to keep talking about Robinhood the way I did for a while on this site. But, I can’t do it in the same way now. There is no way to segment out my holdings and I didn’t want to create a second account. In other words, I can’t do screenshots anymore and I really liked doing that. I don’t really want to make a fake portfolio and spend time “fake buying and selling” with it. That seems like a kind of waste of time. I haven’t decided this completely though and if I revisit the idea of a fake portfolio, then I will post the trades on this site.

I’d say that since I started investing again in 2013, i have overall lost. I’ve lost quite a bit in comparison to figures in my income, savings, and retirement planning. This is generally not a good idea either. I just hate the idea of only making money from real estate. If I would admit to having a mental illness, it would be in the relatively false believe in the value of real estate.

So, anyone that ever pays attention to me when I talk about money should always do so with an idea of learning what not to do rather than what to do. Also, you can pay attention out of the desire to learn about tools because I spend a lot of time learning about the best or cheapest ones.

I plan to get much more in to Robinhood now. They seem cheesy sometimes but what the hell, all millennial companies seem that way now just as 80s or 90s companies would seem such to someone from the 60s.

Final thought: In regards to the stock market, the game of playing favorites with who gets a crack at the village pump is as old as time itself. Who gets rich in the US is most often based on lineage. You’d have to prove it to me that it isn’t the case.

Well folks, I don’t think I want to take screenshots of RobinHood anymore. It isn’t because I am doing so well but I am in the plus. I just want people to know that I have chosen to prioritize the account in comparison to the other 2 accounts I have. In other words, my other two accounts with brokerages may have limited life spans. Robinhood is really the way to go and I think it has so much potential. It is a perfect example of a company that daily whoops ass all over hell and no one really pays attention to them. It is just a matter of time. They will probably go public and have a valuation of around 20+ billion in the next 5 years or so but who cares now. No one. The concept of no commission on ETFs is still something that will take a long ass time to reach the average dumbass. Oh well. I don’t really have a desire to convince anyone of anything. If you contact me in some way, you might get me to write more and that may be a wise thing for some people financially. Not because I always say the best thing but I almost always happen to be thinking in some way about the best thing but I don’t always make the best decisions about the best thing. Story of my life. Have a nice day.

I hit $53 up and still didn’t sell as I mentioned. It is now a full year anniversary. I could have pulled 10% for the year many times but I have chosen to take a back seat on this account. I sold all the shares of one of the two stocks and bought a different one with the remaining funds. Both are probably considered risky by most standards but there is an upside to their risk.

Notice at the bottom of the screen, the word “Cryptocurrencies” is there. Yes, RobinHood recently began a promotion to offer Cryptocurrency trading sign-up. It is a beta promotion and there seem to be a limited number of spots open. I landed at about 150,000 and last time I checked it was well over 1,000,000 signups.

Just being truthful, it might have been a good idea to sell at $550 and walk with 10% in under a year. I could sell now and take my whopping $20 which is still 4% and absolutely destroys all banks but I am out to prove a point here and I don’t have any hardcore hatred for the 2 stocks that are experiencing downturns. So, I will let them drop below $500 if need be because I am more interested in holding them than selling them.

What am I doing bothering to write about Robin Hood, the app that allows for free stock trading? Because, as I have shown time and time again in my history, I can’t stop paying attention to what is coming down the pike. It is like I am strapped in or that part of my consciousness is hard coded. I will go into this elsewhere. On to the significance of Robin Hood…

So, why should the average person pay attention? I will be brutally honest. You can make money off of it. You could lose money too but the potential for you to make is higher than the potential to lose if you are not stupid. You have to be realistic about the amounts and that is difficult for a lot of people to get their heads around because they often can’t stop themselves from eating a whole candy bar when they are physically satisfied with half of it.

What do I get out of popularizing it? I don’t get anything yet. Not until my popularization reaches beyond my tight circle of family, friends, and acquaintances. Most of my circle of that type could care less what I think about this stuff. Ask them if you think they do care, you will see in their responses. So, I really do want to gain but I don’t want my whole life to revolve around using it and talking about it. I would rather talk about what could potentially be good investments. I don’t think that a good investment has to start on Wall Street or Silicon Valley. Stocks can go viral sustainably if they have a certain structure behind them. If the structure is not in place, then they are just pump and dumps. I don’t hate the OTC Pink penny stocks or other exchanges besides the mainstream exchanges but Robin Hood will be a place to start with mainstream stock buying and you can carry that learning experience to other methods of investing or other exchanges.

Why listen to me and not someone else on the net? No reason, really. I just haven’t found any straight shooters talking about Robin Hood yet. It is talked about in a lofty way, in comparison to TD Ameritrade, Etrade, Scotrade, Schwab, etc. Usually its competitors charge between $5 and $9 a trade. That would be double for a round trip trade which is a huge barrier for anyone to enter the market for any reason.

God do I hate real estate investing. I hate it so incredibly much you have no clue. If I never would have left the US when I was 23, I would have been just fine with it and thought it was just part of the “American Experience”. I wouldn’t have looked at it as a rite of passage and a measuring stick with which an average citizen should be judged like a majority of dumbass “Americans”. You honestly have to be braindead to not understand how you can gain from buying a house if you know a thing or two about restaurants and location, location, location.

I am still doing OK since February with my initial investment of $500. That is 10% before the end of the year now, as of 10/7/17. A lot of people may expect more than 10% from a $500 investment in this amount of time but I am content with it. I can totally understand how handing off $500 to a relative that is a junior in college may be a better investment but bear with me. I suppose you could put it in a bank…Millennial humor.

I am still not ready to say which stocks I have this spread into. In many ways it is irrelevant because the indices keep climbing unrealistically. One is sort if a US based bear market fund bet and the other is a fund that is pinned to US indices but it is managed by a foreign bank. I have been playing with ETFs since 2013 and they are in that ballpark.

This is all I will say for now. .38 Special is on in the bar I am in right now. Maybe that is a better investment? You tell me. I am looking for some discussion but I have heard that gunfolk do not like to write in blogs.

Why RobinHood? Why paste in this status?

> Well, I have been playing with the stock market since around 1994. It has not always treated me kindly. I honestly have not always made the best decisions. But, that is the deal with the market. You gain more, the more you are willing to risk. Among my peers, I was encouraged to think about monetary accumulation earlier than most. They always figured that because I was thinking about it so early, I would, of course, be fine with it over time. That thought of me depended on a lot of things.

> I suppose I cannot deny that I am an American and I have been up to this point. Most average Americans do not think in terms of monetary accumulation as it relates to the stock market unless there is career specialization. So, anyway, I began early to think that the stock market was interesting without having a career specialization with it.

> Good idea? Bad idea? Time doesn’t need to tell. In my case, it was a bad idea. It doesn’t need to be a bad idea for others but in my case it was because I do not have over a million socked away at this point. And, that is precisely how I measure whether or not it was a good idea to pay attention to the market(s) early. In my book, there is NO other way to look at it.

I have homed in on a couple of key trades that I made between 1994 and 2001 and my finances would be in much different shape now if I would have held instead of sold. But, I sold and that is all history.

> I got back into the market in 2013. Since that time, I have made both good and bad trades but overall, I would say I have made bad trades. I should have doubled my portfolio by now but I am not a strict index buyer like most people that come into contact with the market. Sometimes I try to find lumps of coal that will turn out to be diamonds and sometimes I pay attention to the foreign markets. This is partially because I got into the markets while living abroad.

> So, what is with today’s post? Why RobinHood and why is your portfolio doing OK in the past 6 months. My initial investment with RobinHood was $500. I figured, “hey, wtf”, I throw money at dumbass shit in 2 other accounts I might as well try a commission free account. I am used to this company by now since I opened my account 6 months ago. Most people are probably like “He’s making another dumbass move with money like the thousands of moves he’s done already otherwise he would be driving a Porche around town(non-rental).”.

> Well, 99 times out of 100, whoever would have said that kind of thing would be correct. But, because I never touch this account, they are wrong. I just let this account sit. And, it rakes. It won’t rake forever, of course, because I recommend selling if the Dow index goes South and you lose 20% of your gains.

> Butt, for the time being, you can’t go wrong based on the 2 stocks I have chosen because their prices don’t fluctuate drastically and that is the whole idea. I was sort of interested in beating the banks with this account and I didn’t just beat them, I have destroyed them. They will always say that my 2 stocks are too volatile or risky. Always. They have nothing to offer you but “security” or a mattress to stick your money in to. If they were to offer you risk and things went South, you would hate them. Real estate seems safe in the past 10 years. Go for it. Nothing can generate returns on your investments like real estate. Ever wonder why a real estate king was elected president? Nah, don’t bother. Seriously, don’t bother. It isn’t worth thinking about now. Especially now. This is not a joke. $500 in 2/17 to $540 in 8/17 is only taking place because the US real estate market is stable. OK. I can buy that.

> Almost anything you want to say about money is OK at this time. Almost anything you want to say about real estate is OK at this time. I can buy that. Maybe, for once, the market won’t slide. Maybe, for once, this is a time of unprecedented US wealth. I can buy that. Seriously,  I will not disagree at all. You will only catch me questioning people when the Dow index drops back to about 15000. For now, I will simply agree with anything anyone ever says about money. No joke. If you have 2 incomes of $14 an hour and you both work at Amazon, and you are buying your first home for $120k. What ever you imagine you could ever say about money I will agree with. If you are in your 20s and you are forking into your 401Ks, and all your holdings are with the index, I would be happy to say that when that index hits 30,000 you guys are going to be looking at more financial security. No problem at all. That is now, these are these times.

> Wouldn’t you like to know which stocks have generated $41 since 2/17? I think I will probably tell you for free but I am lazy tonight and it may be in the next screenshot. Don’t expect the next screenshot to be higher, either, it may drop back to $525 for all I know. Thing is, when you sell your house, you are selling it for the $25 as in the difference between $500 and the appreciation of capital of $525. Can you sell your house as fast as I can sell that $525? Maybe, maybe not. That is now. These are these times.

If you create an account with robinhood.com please let me know. I am just plain interested in whether or not you see it of value. I don’t think I can get anything, but I would if I could. How’s that for blatent honesty.