amoeba's Account Talk

[sniper]

Re: give to the rich now, take from the old later (late february)

I am 100% in G. When will be a good time to move some of it out? Would I fund be a good option?

LMBF method is a good one to follow, or do like me the past couple years was the "Follow ContrarianJeff until i feel confident enough about trying this on my own" method lol

 

[JTH]

Re: S is 250% above its five year lows, and some still call it a buy.

Amoeba

I see you made a move recently, reducing your risk in the small/mid caps. I'm curious as to your age, sometimes age helps me understand someone's risk tolerance. I'm 39ish, the all in, go big or go home type, so I can afford to cut my teeth and make some mistakes (so long as I learn from them.)

 

[JamesE]

Re: S is 250% above its five year lows, and some still call it a buy.

Well, I see NtvTxan and Wizard of Oz went in 100% and Meebs went out 100% today. Hmmm, that means one thing.... this things got some legs yet!

 

[Birchtree]

Re: S is 250% above its five year lows, and some still call it a buy.

It would appear we had a clucking today and now amoeba is frozen out of the market for the remainder of January - gosh that's 15 trading days of potential rewards. But hey, perhaps he's correct. It's his money and not mine.

 

[amoeba]

Who won on the fiscal cliff deal (early retirees with alot of cap gains).

It would appear we had a clucking today and now amoeba is frozen out of the market for the remainder of January - gosh that's 15 trading days of potential rewards. But hey, perhaps he's correct. It's his money and not mine.

I believe BT (not me) was first to say he was going to lighten position @ ^VIX<16 and it's <14. I came close to my (lowered) return target for this first month; we'll see what happens from now on. I suspect there will be much more on the fiscal cliff next round - wouldn't be surprised if the cap gains tax was revisited. I suspect sideways action....not much upside, and growing risk.

20%? (starting >$400K!). Take that and the estate tax, and there will be alot of early retirees who won't ever pay 20%.

I think yObama booboo'd on his revenue math on that one; good luck getting any more after the dem's voted for it; and good luck on even more spending cuts to make up the difference.

 

[Birchtree]

Re: Who won on the fiscal cliff deal (early retirees with alot of cap gains).

Yup, I'm sure glad I don't have an adjusted gross income greater than $450K - got lots of capital gains though that do not have to be harvested until ripe. I'm going to try and hold out on any selling until the VIX gets below the 10 level - this is primarily due to the early momentum that the market has delivered plus the Fed spending a QE4 of $85 billion a month until who knows when. Just staying with the current as we flow toward more new all time highs. Making money this year is going to be easy but it requires no fear.

 

[Birchtree]

Re: Who won on the fiscal cliff deal (early retirees with alot of cap gains).

Is VIX

 

[Boghie]

Re: Who won on the fiscal cliff deal (early retirees with alot of cap gains).

But Birch, JTH, MJR, NASA, JamesE,

If you put everything you had into the NASDAQ 100 in January of 2000 you still haven't made it all back. Your still broke. You have lost like 50% or 100% of everything. A complete loss. But if you still had anything and if you put 100% of it into the 'C Fund' in September of 2007 and pulled 100% of it out in February 2009 you are broke again. Broke, broker, and brokerer:nuts:

There is NO chance any of you buy and holders and traders and technicians and investor made any money. Look at the charts. I'll give you some funny date ranges that prove you can never make any money in the rigged stock market. And, who can figure out all that stuff about DCA and everything. The smart money has been out of the market since March of 2000!!!

Dead broke I say. Dead Broke:laugh:

 

[amoeba]

Does anyone know what Obama meant when he said, today.....

"close tax loopholes"

"open to modest changes in Medicare entitlements"


Hmmm.........if there were tax loopholes, WTH did you sign the bill....when was that? two weeks ago?

And......hmmmmmmm again.......not going to change Medicare much, so the budget savings comes from where else? Or is the POTUS just not clued in on what these things cost, or how they get paid for?

I have no idea what he is saying.....further, I'm not convinced he knows either.....anyone is welcome to explain it (or confirm it is just an excuse to argue some more 3 wks from now). Doesn't seem like anyone cares to solve any of this.

 

[nnuut]

Re: Does anyone know what Obama meant when he said, today.....

Medicare gets charged over $5,000 for some MRIs, CT Scans are also at a premium. These procedures should not cost that much, it's BS, they are only fancy XRAYS and Magnetic Resonance imaging. The main tools doctors use to find out what's happening inside your miserable bodies is breaking the system. 4 months ago I had 3 CT scans, 5 MRIs and 5 Ultrasonic scans, they didn't find anything! ADD it up with 3 days in the hospital and that's about $37,000, and nothing is wrong with me, somebody is sucking Medicare dry! This is beside the fraud that happens every day.

 

[Birchtree]

Re: Does anyone know what Obama meant when he said, today.....

You're lucky all they found in your lungs was air and nothing in your head. (pun intended)

 

[amoeba]

sideways action continues

This is a tough one; low volume and vix since new year, a bit of a drift up on the small caps, otherwise listless, quiet market. I see no direction right now....if I were to guess - it would be sideways +/1 <1% to end of month, then filling the gap (i.e., at least 3% down) from the first day of the year, some time a few days at the end of January to the end of the first five sessions of February, and then who knows?

I don't suppose there's anyone else who really thinks there would be a mild correction, which means there will be one.

 

[nnuut]

Re: Does anyone know what Obama meant when he said, today.....

You're lucky all they found in your lungs was air and nothing in your head. (pun intended)

EXACTLY!

 

[jkenjohnson]

Re: Does anyone know what Obama meant when he said, today.....

Medicare gets charged over $5,000 for some MRIs, CT Scans are also at a premium. These procedures should not cost that much, it's BS, they are only fancy XRAYS and Magnetic Resonance imaging. The main tools doctors use to find out what's happening inside your miserable bodies is breaking the system. 4 months ago I had 3 CT scans, 5 MRIs and 5 Ultrasonic scans, they didn't find anything! ADD it up with 3 days in the hospital and that's about $37,000, and nothing is wrong with me, somebody is sucking Medicare dry! This is beside the fraud that happens every day.

What kind of symptoms did you have? Maybe it was gas from too many boiled peanuts.

 

[amoeba]

what medicare entitlement cuts means most likely this....

YOU getting cut, not the medical facilities......

 

[Birchtree]

Re: what medicare entitlement cuts means most likely this....

Time To Choose | Chris Martenson | Safehaven.com

 

[JimmyJoe]

Re: what medicare entitlement cuts means most likely this....

YOU getting cut, not the medical facilities......

Well, you've got me started. The medical industry preys on people making wrong personal decisions about their health. After years of growing up listening to pediaticians, children and their parents give up their souls to doctors who've learned their craft from books written by big pharma, pushing their pills. After we go into the workforce, and a career of paying into medical health care, employers condoned, great btw, to keep an eye on our personal life outside the office, we become believers of the medical system and even pay for it after we retire. If we are lucky we've retained our health during our golden years and begin to believe in our God given immune system that is based upon good, natural foods. Gone are our days of believing in standardized medical practices. We just can't now, find the time or the reason to waste our time waiting in a waiting room, for them to make us only half way better. Here's the truth of the matter. The medical system, doctors included, want their return for investing 10 years learning about what it is they've learned. Their lobby is in Washington cooking up ways to get the public to pay for their offices, expensive homes, retreats. I'm stopping here. You all get the jist of what I'm saying. If you have an ailment, research ways to naturally cure yourself by googling your symptoms. I hear that some doctors are coming around but for me, like Greg Allman sang, "I ain't wasting time no more".

 

[sniper]

Re: Who won on the fiscal cliff deal (early retirees with alot of cap gains).

why do you guys pick on amoeba so much? yeah he's not as aggressive in the market as some of us are, but hey if it works for him and he's happy with it then what's the problem? his strategy would probably kick a lot of our asses if we run into a bear market (and inevitably we will eventually, it's just the cycle of the markets)

 

[Birchtree]

Re: Who won on the fiscal cliff deal (early retirees with alot of cap gains).

No one picks on out friend amoeba - many months ago he was dishing out the bearish sentiment and now it comes back around, that's all. Although he would suffice as an excellent contrarian indicator.

 

[Boghie]

Re: Who won on the fiscal cliff deal (early retirees with alot of cap gains).

Sniper,

Almost all of us lost money in 2008. In fact, only 15 AutoTracker types made money in 2008 - and, I think PoolMan must be an inside trader to have made 20%. I keep sending letters to the SEC but they don't seem to do anything - he might be Bernie Madoff:cheesy:. Anyway, Amoeba made 1.58% in the last half of 2008. That would have placed him in the top 15% of we AutoTracker people. I figure that making the top 20% is a great marker. Thus, Amoeba probably had a great year in 2008.

What I - and others in their own ways - are trying to say to Amoeba is that every year is not a crash. I didn't have a 2008 loss till I got back into equities in October 2008. Then I lost money in a very quick fashion and migrated back out. But, you have to accept losses greater than 1% or 2% to be around when the market gains 4% in a week. Like Amoeba and most others here I don't think you have to ride the pig into the pit, but you have to ride it around a little bit to see where it is going. And, with the inane IFT rules you can only jump on and off twice a month. Those mounts and dismounts are worth more than a little sway on the runnin' razorback.

The other thing I always try to get through is that the market does not respect any of our goals. Setting a goal of making 0.5% in a month and getting out to avoid risk is actually risky. January was a 4% month. You have to collect some of those gains because February may be a month long slide (it hasn't been, but this is an example). So, you get out in early January after making your half point and get in sometime in February with a goal of making that month's half point. You pick wrong and lose a whole point. Now, you are down a half point. Now you jump off the hog and onto the lily pad. Then you hear that some politicians will promise future cuts to avoid the sequester or something and jump back on - looking for the acorn. Then, after a 1% gain (now you are +0.5% again), some other aged lawyer someone voted for kyboshes the whole thing and the market dumps 3%. Now you are -2.5% and you jump to the lily pad again. Then the market realizes that they really don't care that us gubmint flaks take a 20% pay cut and booms. There you are, watching a 5% move because you have already spent your gold. 100% in, 100% out, and watching from the sidelines at a -2.5% YtoD return. Wash and repeat.

Finally, making 2% in a market that gains 14% is as bad as losing money. The S&P500 averages 9% or 10%. You probably should soften the risk a bit from a 100% C allocation, but losing 12% of gains in multiple years takes a lot of the buffer away from correction years. If you are averaging +2% per year than a single week of 2008 would wipe out years of growth and require years to recover. And, making 2% a year in your 40's will result in Social Security type distributions in your less than golden years.

So, no, folks are not really hammering the guy. He seems nice enough and spry enough and can handle his own. Just concerned. If he is 45 years old he is locking in the Alpo Meal Deal Retirement Plan. If he is 60 years old he is playing it smart.