Yeah.
Nothing to worry about.
Just keep pretending SBC doesn’t matter.
Just keep pretending valuations don’t matter.
Just keep pretending GAAP profitability doesn’t matter.
Just keep waiting for always-up yolo/fomo/momo/btfd to resume.
I am sure it will all be fine.
enjoy the weekend,
Dreamer
Buy the dip. Er… the dips.
KC
Saul board apparently filled w banking/market contagion experts now.
My eyes hurt from rolling.
“Everything is fine…”
Dreamer
everything is fine.
Inflation may be up 6% y/y, but the “pace” of inflation increases has stopped!
(crowds stand up and roar soundly, filling the air with spittle and their hearts with hopium!)
Meanwhile, back on Planet Reality:
But nothing to see here. We are all fine. Just fine.
Dreamer
Buy the dips.
20% cash, 2% treasuries. SPG and OKE paying over 6% dividend Hmmm 6% sounds familiar… Oh yeah! Same as inflation.
Cash down to such a small percent that I want a little bit better prices. SPG under $100. UPST around $13. Trying to sit on my hands, which is hard if you are holding your head in your hands.
KC
You should add your target prices to the “Happy Target Prices” thread!
Hoping, if a recession, SPG retests the 2022 lows. In hindsight that was a no-brainer in mid-80s…grrrr!
Dreamer
Nothing will surprise me today, but I guess most likely outcome will be a 25 basis point rate increase, done in a dovish “sorry about the banks” manner.
And market will probably pop, because they are all just a bunch of confused yolo/fomo/momo degens at this point, who long-ago forgot or abandoned any reality around fundamentals when it comes to stocks.
The growth investor hears that Stripe had a recent fund raise to be valued at $50b. The growth bros decry “wow…down 50%…can’t wait for them to IPO at those levels, what a steal!” while non-growth bros are like “$50b for what exactly?! Man…this is proof retail has learned nothing since 2020!”
Can you really shut down an economy, and businesses, at a large scale, as you did with Covid shutdowns, and then only have a downturn for a month or so? Is it akin to internal bleeding or cancer growing slowly undetected?
Then you mess with housing values, ramp inflation wildly, while letting market slide down for over a year (while still elevated historically) with what appears to be a soft economy on the horizon. Are your internal organs starting to struggle? Do you tear an achilles just walking the dog?
So then you let a few banks collapse, and all sorts of folks, this author included, start moving funds into bigger and bigger banks to sleep a bit more comfortably at night. All those regional banks should be fine long-term…right?
And in the face of all this, you think about cutting rates and backing off the inflation fight. Hmmm.
Tried buying a new car lately? How is it different in last 5 years? How about a used car?
Tried buying a house lately?
Had kids go off to college lately? Holy crapola, Batman. What a joke.
Tried to insure those teenage drivers? Oh. My. God.
I have had a decent job/income for a long time now.
And I seriously wonder: how do people making the average or median income, get by these days, at least with all the “essentials” of a modern society?
We have less marriage than ever, so less dual-income, but even if two incomes in a household, you have to offset the 2nd income with daycare, at least in early years of kids.
Mortgages higher than ever. $1000 is median in 2021. Should be higher now.
Home Insurance. Up.
Electric and gas bills…maybe separate water bill. All up.
Home insurance. Up.
Auto payments. Up.
Auto Insurance. Up. (WAY THE EFF UP IF 16-18 year old!)
Cell phone costs. Up.
Cell phone bills. Up.
Internet speed? Up. Internet cost? Also Up. (as cable companies shift from making money on tv/cable to internet)
TV/Cable cost? Downsized by many.
Hidden costs of all those streaming channels added when “cutting the cord”? Yeah, that stuff is UP.
Do you like to eat? UP. UP. UP.
Eat out? Up.
Eat in? Up.
Fill your auto with gas? Up.
I used to joke that you couldn’t spend $20 at Taco Bell. You just couldn’t…and I can eat crappy food. Circa 2010 or so it was still cheap as heck. Now? They actually have a $7+ burrito. Wha…? Don’t get me started on Chipotle…every restaurant now thinks “let’s just make it $10 or so, and jack up the soft drink and fries costs, too”.
This was all just largely living too. Take kids on vacation? All jacked UP.
Take family to a baseball game? There goes the vacation fund.
A day at Six Flags or the Water Park? Hundreds…hundreds.
Anyway. My rant/tangent is just to say, don’t worry about it. Enjoy the (likely) rally. Tell yourself a new bull market has started. You may even be right for a couple or several months.
I am sure everything is fine. We are all fine. Aren’t you?
Dreamer
GME is up 48% in last 3 hours all in after hours trading!
This might be what we need. A artificial rally before the 45+ vix market crash when realty sets in.
Dancin’ in the street! I have those moonshot stocks plus some story stocks. On days like this I like to see what is participating and what isn’t. Just look at these “quality” stocks:
STOCK % GAIN AFRM 13.4 STEM 9.4 VERI 9.2 UPST 7.3 ONDS 6.9 BILL 6.7 ENVX 6.6 On the other hand, some that might be considered quality dividend payers up just a little: SPG 1.8% OKE 1.9%
IMO, this is not a picture of healthy market rally. AFRM volume was up 10%, STEM up 16%, but UPST and ONDS had lower-than-average volume. Revenge of the cigar butts.
So, up 3.8% on the day overall, but not celebrating. I wasn’t up early enough to take profit. I doubt that March 24 options will be really cheap but I will look at buying puts on some of these. 17.8% cash plus the treasuries are now 2.2%. Portfolio up 0.9% for the year. Huzah!
KC
Poor cloud computing…
Punched in the face since at least Nov 2021, and now the govt is kicking da man while he is down.
Wonder if it means anything or will lead anywhere. Either way, if you weren’t sure if “Cloud” was no longer under the radar, I think this helps crystallize your thinking.
Dreamer
I took a trip with my Lorean to find out:
FTC Releases Staff Study Examining Business Practices of Cloud Computing Providers
Study finds that the cloud is a mess
February 2, 2026
A new Federal Trade Commission report spotlights the business practices of cloud computing providers. The report includes several recommendations.
“The completion of this study is a big step forward in enhancing our understanding of what the cloud is”, said new FTC chairman Formergoo G. Leexecutive. “The recommendations we are proposing are designed to balance the needs of cloud computing providers with the goal of reducing messiness.”
[…]
The Commission voted 3-0 on January 21, 2026 to issue the report.
Car loans getting out of hand…
I am sure it will all be fine.
Just fine.
Fine.
How does this play out for UPST? (Assuming they have any business in auto).
The average annual percentage rate (APR) on financing a new car climbed from 4.5% in March 2022 to 7% a year later. Sounds positive.
Roughly 17% of people with new car or truck loans are now spending $1,000 or more per month, thanks to higher prices and elevated interest rates. *Good, if they have any business.
Most $1,000 per month car loans are taken out by people who choose high-interest, longer-term loans. *Should be in UPST wheelhouse.
In 2004, only 1% of auto loans lasted six to seven years. Now those long-term loans are 30% of the market. Only 5% of loans are paid off in two-and-a-half to three years. Good. Repo and resell on used market
New vehicle sales in the first quarter of 2023 grew 5.7% over the first quarter of 2022, *What’s not to like?
Subprime loans, which are offered to consumers with lower credit scores, represented roughly 15% of the market in March 2020. By the end of 2022, subprime loans shrank to roughly 5% of auto loans. Well, that sucks
Three weeks 'til earnings.
KC
Bear having an existential crisis…
This pretty much sums up one of my major issues with the momentum investing gang over there. A company is a great idea at $150/share provided growth is at X%. If growth goes to under Y%, then it is utterly worthless and shouldn’t be bought even under $60/share.
Just shows there is a complete and utter failure to have any accounting for valuation in their investing equation. Nor is there any entry/exit price strategy.
Who wouldn’t buy DDOG today at $63 if they thought it would go to $150 in a year or two? Yet a “valuation doesn’t matter” approach doesn’t allow them to take gains at $150 or even $300, if growth is stable or accelerating.
It is as if “macro” is a non-existent word in their world.
I am sure it will all work out just fine. No way QQQ or SPY could drop 10-20% from here. Right?
Dreamer
49 message long thread on ENPH on the momentum growth board.
Everyone suddenly owned it.
Down -16% at moment.
Cant make this stuff up.
Dreamer (near YTD high)
jonwayne, of UPST mega-mega-mega-hype fame, is scratching his head over at Saul’s…
"Why have single digit revenue growers crushed the SaaS favorites on this board - to the point of nearly gross embarrassment?
What can be learned from these incredible differences in results?
DDOG: -5.8%
GOOGL: +17%
AMZN: +22%
MSFT: +23%
AAPL: +31%
META: +93.5% (includes afterhours gain)
NVDA: +88%
Otherwise I believe only NET has offered a respectable +38% and CRWD +20% YTD.
BILL down -30.5%
ZS down -15.5%
Etc"
Maybe the answer, which very few besides myself ever seemed to ask the question to, is that the momentum/growth/valuation-doesn’t-matter method doesn’t actually produce better investing results than other stock cohorts.
After all, ENPH went from sub-$5 to $160 by early 2021…a mere 30x. How it was not worthy of consideration then vs now by Saul’s board, I have trouble understanding.
Ditto BTC, random junk coins based on dogs, TSLA, TTD, MSFT, and probably any makeup company like ULTA.
In a nonsensical bull market, everything was going up, so of course just about any stock cohort did well, and biased echo chambers couldn’t pat their backs hard enough: “see…this time is different…told you…lol…lambo…blah blah”.
Was MSFT a crap company from late 2000 to 2015 or so, where stock was underwater for 15 years? Of course not. But maybe their valuation got ahead of itself in March 2000, just like CSCO and the whole dotcom mess and most of market.
UPST was a $300+ stock like 2 years ago…was $12 in last 6 months or so.
Maybe having some sort of valuation mechanism is a good idea, maybe understanding macro is a good idea, and maybe having an entry/exit price strategy is a good idea.
Maybe I am dumb though. Just a guy on the internet.
I am sure it will all be fine. Just fine.
Dreamer
oh gawd…
someone on Saul board just hinted at maybe taking a break if they are feeling despair and learning something new.
And that “something” was hinted at being bitcoin.
Can’t make this stuff up.
Let me just make my prediction now: BTC will hit under $15k at some point in 2023. Enjoy learning about that.
But I am sure it will be fine.
Maybe some new space SPACs will come out…can learn about those, too.
Wait…I got it: Space EV pot SPACs. That is a winning lotto ticket if I ever heard of one.
Everything will be fine.
Dreamer
What an awesome new bull market we are in!
Fills me with confidence!
(swells with said confidence)
Struts a bit.
“What’s that you say…? Breadth? Who the heck cares!?”
I am sure it will all be fine.
Just fine.
Dreamer
Since Saul’s board rules limit the discussion of exactly what I “head scratchingly” asked, I restricted myself from elaborating further in that post.
I will say that I have radically changed my investing approach since February of this year. I am going to post here, what I’ve written in private to others elsewhere lately.
After the bruising start of the year selloff in January, I finally capitulated and tore up the “Saul like” playbook in February.
Sold out of all shares of SaaS and plowed into trading in and out of FAANG stocks, selling puts on various stocks (but on mostly SaaS companies). And the past week, into ZS when it became hilariously oversold.
As nascent as this short term focused strategy has been, I have managed to avoid the gutter lows of January throughout the year (see for example, DDOG share price, which clung to its 52 week lows from March to May - that’s what I was sick of seeing my portfolio do).
Currently +58% YTD (but still down a nasty -20%, from the end of 2021).
Portfolio churns constantly and pretty much everyday.
