Zero-commission Trading Platforms...Stock Market or Casino of the Pandemic?, Ep 06

In pandemonic times, zero-commission trading platforms have become the casino of Americans who are cooped up at home. Companies like Robinhood are offering zero-commission trading, making people less hesitant to trade. That combined with the fact that alcohol sales are up 14% since the beginning of COVID and a 92% increase in options trades this year leads us to think there may be a lot of people making some questionable trade decisions.

Sitting at home without the typical legal gambling outlets the stock market seems to have become the place where huge bets are being made by those looking to satisfy their gambling fix. At the casino, you put money on the table — that’s what buying a call option equates to — putting money on a table and hoping for a return. Options trading is challenging and not something the average investor should try to tackle on their own. Following trends isn’t investing it’s speculation. In a game of speculation, the house is more likely to win, so I guess our advice today would be don't drink and trade and stay out of the casino. Hopefully some good will come out of this though and people will start to understand investing and jump in for the long haul by buying individual stocks or index funds because that’s where the REAL money is made. 

You will want to hear this episode if you are interested in...

• Drinking options...oh, wait we meant options trading. [0:39]
• Tech bubble talk. [3:01]
• “Paradigm shift” [4:25]
• A huge consequence of concentrating your money in one place. [5:08]
• Questions to ask yourself? [7:24]
• The tipping point: Investment hearsay. [9:00]
• When it comes to financial planning what’s best for you? [14:39]
• Hidden facts of finance: Retail blues. [18:37]

Tech bubble, same old same, or something different this time?

Let’s talk tech bubble... again...it’s prime time in the news when talking about financial markets and what we are hearing is that it is different this go around. That it’s not the same as the tech bubble of 99-2000 when there was this big proliferation of cheap online trading sites, doctors and lawyers were quitting day jobs to become day traders, and you had this belief that there was this new economy. But wait… doesn’t that sound a lot like 99-2000 after all?

When it comes down to it you have to ask yourself, is mean reversion still a thing, or are those lofty tech valuations eventually going to come back down to earth. You should also question whether or not you believe we're going to beat this virus? Is the economy going to reopen again? If it does are all those stocks that are benefiting from lockdown going to be great long-term buys. As the economy picks up and grows, as we go out, drive more, and fly more, as we go back to our normal routines how will that affect the market? What stocks are going to benefit from that? Or is this new normal going to last forever? If history has taught us anything it’s that nothing lasts forever. 

Investment hearsay is this week’s tipping point

What’s the pain point that has the biggest impact on your wealth right now? When it comes to investing your money and financial planning, we think it’s “investment hearsay”. People love to give blanketed advice. Even if they have no credentials and no professional background. They feel like it's okay to give unsolicited investment and financial planning advice and it gets consumed like it's actual gospel. We think it's really dangerous. You get this advice from cocktail parties or maybe someone very confident about how they invest their money, and a lot of times it's just completely WRONG. Are you getting dangerous advice from unqualified people?

Retail blues on this week’s hidden facts of finance 

This week’s hidden fact is all about “retail blues”. Twenty-four(24) retailers have filed for bankruptcy from Jan - July 16, 2020! That’s more in half of this year than all of 2019 combined. We are also looking at as many as 25k stores closing in 2020 vs 9832 in 2019. This has a great deal to do with the pandemic but it’s also due to online retail. 

Zoom stock has zoomed up 465% in 2020 is now worth more than a hundred billion dollars. Peloton has a market cap of 25 billion after gaining 209% this year, as its stationary bikes replaced gym memberships. Netflix stock is up from $1 to a close of $500, adjusted for splits, since its debut less than two decades ago. 

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