School me on investing...

This is the kind of shit that makes me question even a tree fiddy entry point on JMIA. If they ever did manage to make it profitable, too many fingers would be trying to dip into the pie.

https://www.mining.com/web/resolute-ceo-detention-in-mali-comes-amid-west-africa-mining-squeeze/

 

I've been watching PLTR since the very beginning of COVID, I dont even remember from where it caught my attention, never pulled the trigger though. Shoulda woulda... I gotta start making more moves.

 

Surprised no one has mentioned crypto. I know it's not the hot topic around here, but whatever weird thing happened last week seems to have had a ... Uh... Mild effect on the crypto market. I didn't even think to check. My son mentioned it to me last night so I took a look.


DAYUM! I mean, DAYUM! Some of my coins have f'ing doubled. Just from yesterday to today my overall "portfolio" is up 12%. I don't expect it to stay this high; but just like silver, will there be a new normal? I feel silver is at a more new normal of 30. Certainly interesting times.

 

Before the election, trump met with some crypto people in New York and an impromptu Q&A . Hes made it clear hes pro cryto.

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2024/11/06...he-crypto-industry-ahead-of-the-election.html

 

Sarcasm, and all that.

 

Unloaded about a third of mine at $346 (sell order at $330 but got lucky at the open).

 

I say this as somebody that currently holds none: election hype train aside, try to look at it rationally. He has "said" that he's going to form a commission for crypto. He's said he wants the gov't to have a strategic reserve of BTC by buying up 1m BTC over a 5-year period, then holding for no less than 20 years. Right now (just cause I saw a chart yesterday), ALL countries' holdings of BTC amount to about 5-6% of the total, with the US (oddly) being the highest one haha. So still, currently, not really a massive market mover in itself diluted between 30 countries or so. 1m of them is about 5% of the total by itself, so 5% PLUS the current worldwide gov't holdings would probably start to mean something. IF, he goes thru with that plan, I'd bet you there'd be a giant run up to $150k or so based on purely high level analysis of supply pressure and then the psychology of being US backed (our economy power and bombs) in a meaningful amount. I'd also bet that after whatever run up, you'd see less and less big peaks and valleys and the waves continue to normalize to a mean range going forward. The gov't being heavily invested, if not already the case, I'm sure its original intent would largely be thwarted, and all the "decentralize the currency" weirdos will have lost even if becoming kinda rich makes them pretend they didn't. What's also still odd at the end of the day, is transaction costs are pricey and its STILL not worth jack shit and has no intrinsic value as opposed to say... gold. I know FIAT currency is technically the same in raw physical use. Except being backed by our economic production and massive military means something. We wouldn't "own" BTC or control it outright. If you got some in your wallet, good for you. I know one or two people that could probably retire now, and/or especially at $150k. I'm not gonna chase the news though personally. Who knows.

In other news... buying stuff from the UK, Canada, EU, Japan is looking like an insanely good deal after last week. FX markets going nuts. That one intrigues me more as somebody who would like to procure toys from European countries.

 

Hang in there guy. Jumia is at a great entry price. Just hold.... That is all.

 

Nice! I sold around close yesterday... and some Coinbase too.

 

Until the military juntas are gone, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger will make making investments in CCP territory look like a predictable endeavour.

 

i gotta be honest... if i had a choice between anti-aircraft gun mounted to the back of a new Hilux, or an African version of Amazon to buy cheep crap I don't really need... I know which one I'm taking!

 

So explain to this idiot what you mean by this? I can go guy a lambo, ferrari or porsche in Euros and get a better price?

 

Not exactly, but fewer dollars after you exchange your dollars for more euros than you could have a couple of weeks ago.

 

If the company itself doesn't auto-adjust prices for a global market, which some web vendors do these days so $100 in the US is $100 in the US no matter the exchange rate. Fluctuations in exchange rates will automatically change the price in your currency to whatever it "should be." If not though, or for used goods, private sale goods forum sales, small business goods, Yahoo Japan auctions, a European website mostly only concerned with EU sales who's prices don't adjust... think of it this way...

1 month ago, 1 Euro = $1.10. so say you want to buy a 20k Euro motorbike from some shop or guy in Italy, (ignoring shipping and any import duties for convo sake), it would have cost you $22k USD.

Today its 1 Euro = $1.06. so the same exact bike will now cost you $21,200 USD. Save yourself $800 just like that. Extrapolate that on any parts or projects or bikes and it starts to add up to a decent chunk.

In August we were at 1 Euro = $1.12, so that bike was $22,400. $1200 difference just by waiting 3 months.

CAD and Japanese Yen same thing, but often displayed in a reverse order. Beginning of the year, $1 got you $1.32 CAD. Now its $1.39 CAD. So you get more CAD for your same buck. So take the $20k example as before, but now Canada with CAD. In January that $20k CAD bike would have cost you $15,150. Now its $14,390.

Japan is the craziest, even though there's not much I need right now. When we were building drift cars 20 years ago, having our buddies in Japan send shit back over here and bid on shit for us, it was close to 100 Yen = $1. Currently its 155 Yen = $1 cause their economy is FUCKED haha. So let's say you had $20k USD to buy something. Back then that woulda got you something that was 2,000,000 Yen. Now its 3,100,000 Yen. So literally 50% more buying power than you had in like 2003 across those economies.

People here like to tin foil talk a bit about the devaluation of the US Dollar in terms of gold and raw goods, which are "half truths" in context, and mostly to things wholly contained within the US domestic market itself, but the reality is in a global market, I'm of the camp where 2 things matter way more than trying to cling on to the gold standard.

1. How much do you make in relation to that dollar's value and what lifestyle does it maintain. ie. if you made $20k a year in 1970, and everything is 7x more expensive now, if you make 7x more money at $140k a year, you should roughly be in the same place (for simplicity's sake). So who cares?

2. In a global market, with goods coming from EVERYWHERE, what's more important than "the value of the dollar", is the value of that dollar in relation to OTHER people's money, and what you get for it. If the US goes into a recession, but everyone else has a WORSE recession, then relationally, we're still better off and you have better purchasing power as long as you keep your income coming in and don't get laid off or have a business slowdown yourself. Same idea with inflation.

Where inflation really gets you, is with goods/services that are specifically US contained... healthcare, education, housing, telecomm, electricity. When THOSE have drastic jumps and income is stagnant, year-over-year you're worse off, right? Everyone knows that. But with buying bullshit... electronics, motorbikes, parts, cars, helmets, clothes, etc... from a foreign based store or buyer, that inflation is essentially irrelevant if their currency is tanking faster in relation to ours.


TLDR... shipping is and import fees are gonna eat up some of your deal, but yes, if you can find a deal on the price of a Porsche from Europe, then you're getting an extra deal cause of the exchange rate change in the past month.

How's that?

 

That was an excellent, well thought out response. Thank you for taking the time to do that. I appreciate it.

 

Sure thing man. Now there's other factors at play... demand or rarity for the specific thing you're after (ex. you now have 50% more buying power in Japan than 20 years ago, but if you were after an S15 Silvia, or R34 Skyline GTR, those have both probably increased like 600% with collectibility, age, ability to import, demographic of people wanting them now probably being higher earners, so the exchange benefit is far outweighed by the market). but that is market/item specific.

The other main factor, would be that EVERYONE on earth in a general, majority of population, average earnings sense... are all worse off now than they were before due to pooling of money and the expansion of income disparity. of course that's not clean, and will vary or not exist from country to country, but if you said for example... the US middle class is shrinking, that would imply that a majority of this country is worse off now due to all our earnings/output/GDP not being distributed properly to those producing it, leaving people behind, which may be outpacing any appreciation in our currency against others. ie. doesn't matter if you can buy more Japanese shit if our normal bills swallow up any fun money we may have used to have. What would be a double benefit in this case is, your earnings have kept up with inflation or outpaced it here, AND, population loss and stagnation in Japan has made demand and cost within their own market to drop... then its like a double deal for you.

And there will be 15 things playing off each other at the same time, all the time. Consider that the Porsche air-cooled market is a bit softer in Europe than it is here anyways. So you could already maybe get a deal, deal is slightly erased by shipping/fees, deal gets made slightly better again by exchange rate changes, as long as you trust the guy or got somebody to go inspect.

But for shits and giggles, my personal easiest example... the mountain bike tires I like are made in Germany, and are actually cheaper from this German big online seller, than they are from stores that sell them here by like 30-40%, there's no VAT, shipping isn't that bad. So already its a deal. Now, it just got another 10% cheaper in the last couple months. So I order my tires from there. Just keep it in the back of your head if you're looking at stuff. Some companies like Shimano have started not allowing big sellers to ship cross-region, so that people like me stop benefiting and they can price gouge in different markets. I know for a fact, a GM of Lexus dealership I knew got in trouble from Lexus for allowing a bunch of Nigerian dudes to buy cars from him just to ship back to Africa cause of the same reason, so they could avoid their crazy taxes there on new fancy shit. Just depends on how it shakes for whatever you're after.

 

what made you sell coinbase now?

 

so........ not having a great week?

 

Not. But it's not unusual at all for this puppy.
And multiple other stocks that I'm monitoring in the sector have also been going down, so I'm not overly concerned. It doesn't appear to be company-specific.

 

327% gains... the inevitable drop... and FOMO the $

Coinbase is strange to me because when crypto goes up/down so does the stock. But in reality, coinbase makes money from transactions, so as crypto goes down the stock should go up since more people would be buying.... BTC going up to $90k doesn't seem like it would attract a lot of buyers so there will be less fees. I dunno, seems weird to me. Either way, made enough $ selling a handful of shares to cover the rest of my investment so I'm playing with house money now.