ALERT! intercst makes first stock sale in 8 years

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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But I’m not changing my 97% stock asset allocation.

I’ve closed out my 15+ year investment in Avis Budget Group at $477/share. I’ll take the capital gains and IRMAA hit and rollover the proceeds to BRK.

It will be interesting to see if I left any money on the table at today’s market close.

intercst

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2

And the nice thing is you can get about the same number of Berkshire B shares.

Of the 3% not in stocks, how many years normal expenses is that?

3

Prior to me taking SS at age 69, it was 10 years of living expenses. it’s a lot more today, close to infinite.

intercst

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Well, it appears you left the party a bit early. The close today was around $494. The stock market now has the feel of a roulette wheel.

JimA

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5

Yep. you rarely buy at the exact bottom, and sell at the top.

I’ll be disappointed if it blows up to $600/share next week. {{ LOL }}

The fundamentals of the stock probably value it around $200/share.

intercst

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Fundamentals don’t trade in the market, people do. This is one of the reasons I like charts stock charts, they are an X-ray of the market’s mood. :innocent:

The Captain

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7

I’m not a trader. I place a high value on my time.

So I limit my investment activity to a couple of hours of tax planning and portfolio rebalancing the last week of the year.

Once and a while, you might get an opportunity to pounce on a quick gain from a short squeeze like I did on Friday. But it’s not something I spent time researching. It just happened, like a winning lottery ticket. (That was my third short squeeze profit out of the blue in 45 years of investing.)

intercst

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Thanks. I’m easing into retirement, also have about 10 years worth in cash/t-bills/ibonds. Not expecting our social security to fully fund us at age 70. It might. Hoping we will still be spending a bunch on fun stuff. We plan, the gods laugh.

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There are 5 reasons my SS check is more than adequate to fund my monthly living expenses at age 70.

  1. I waited until age 69 to collect, and surprisingly have a monthly benefit above the 90th percentile of beneficiaries. That’s despite having paid very little in FICA over the past 30 plus years and having lots of zeros in my wage & salary earnings history. I’m astonished that the arithmetic of SS works that way.

Why high income 40 year old retirees still get crazy big Social Security checks at age 62

Of course, my plan was to wait until age 70, but when I received the unexpected above knee amputation last July, I quickly Googled the life expectancy for that and filed for SS with a start date 6 months prior. Since, I’ve learned that because I’m doing extremely well in rehab, and don’t have any of the usual comorbidities of above knee amputees (i.e., diabetes, heart disease, elevated lipids, etc.) my doctors don’t expect any diminution in my life expectancy. You make decisions based on the information you have at the time.

  1. I live in paid for home and have a monthly housing cost that’s 20-25% of a neighbor with a mortgage, or one paying a market rent on their home.

  2. I reside in a state with low property taxes and no state income tax. I don’t know how the State of Washington funds itself, but they’re getting very little revenue from me.

  3. I drive a paid for EV (2020 Tesla Model Y) that costs me less than $1,000/year to operate. The average American with a car loan driving 13,000 mi/year is spending about $13,000/year.

  4. i rarely eat in restaurants, cook, and almost never throw out any food. I haven’t checked it in a while, but I’d be surprised if I’m spending more than $200/month.

Of course, if I want to spend $50,000 on a vacation, I can, but at this point I’ve already been to all 7 continents and don’t detect a lot of utility in getting on a 10-hour plane ride to some exotic destination. I take great joy in devising more efficient ways to do nothing. {{ LOL }}

intercst

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Last time I looked at my expected SS, assuming no more earnings:

Age 62 $31k

Age 67 $45k

Age 70 $55k

The same year I hit 70, Mrs C qualifies for a pension from a former employer and can take SS early. Pretty nice icing on the cake.

Not relying on SS at all - expect by then there will be some sort of means testing or benefit reduction.

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Prophetic! That’s over $100,000 left on the table.

That’s also an example of the fact that when investors sell a winner and replace it with another stock, the new stock invariably underperforms the one you just sold.

intercst

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54% short interest? Yikes.

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{{{ 54% short interest? Yikes. }}}

I think what’s happening here is that the short interest is in the hands of a large hedge fund(s) where the position is a very small percentage of assets. So even if they get to where the cover ratio is 10 to 1 or 20 to 1, they have the financial ability to ride it out.

https://www.barrons.com/articles/avis-stock-short-squeeze-2da41770

{{ Avis Stock Up Another 18% Amid Short Squeeze; Two Investors Control Over 100% of Shares}}

This could be another DELL for somebody. {{ LOL }} My cost basis was less than $10/share.

intercst