I want to buy puts for first time and just need some help. If I think a company is going to go down is the strike price the price I think it's going too? How does it work exactly? does the price have to dip to or below the strike for me to sell?

And from what I read it's not like a short. I don't get buried if the price goes up I simply lose the price of the put? is that accurate?

just google options and read. you can sell the option for a profit (or a loss) at any time, do not have to hold until expiration. last question is correct.

Some days AMZN and many other companies just go with the market regardless of whether the news, positive or negative, has much of an impact on them whatsoever. More buyers at a given time will push the price up and more sellers will push the price down. The fewer active traders, the greater the impact, IMO.

Would more passive money in the market generate greater returns for active investors? I would think so. That certainly hasn't been the case for most hedge fund managers in recent times though.

thanks. I will do more research.

Reading partner wanted

Partner picks a book for me to read, I pick one for them

I read book and make a thorough report/summary like an in-depth cliff notes along with personal experience as it relates to book. My partner does the same with his or her book.

Books should be finance related, fairly popular, and not too technical/ around 300 pages

Swap reports and double our effective reading

BFI had a book club but it never really took off for some reason.

Hey guys, I'm looking for extremely easy book recommendations for for starting up a business for a newbie, I would like to go in the direction of real estate investing but not neccesary.

Any recommendations are greatly approciated thanks.

Has anyone got any thoughts about Metro Bank? It is listed on the LSE (ticker: MTRO).

I do not know how to value banks, looks tricky. I believe that it is the second most shorted stock. In March last year it was trading at £40 per share and is now £8.30.

I am not sure if people are over panicking because banks are so hard to value, but if they are it could be a great opportunity.

Just wondering if anyone here has been following it.

This unfocused, don't do it.

Hi guys I'd like your thoughts on this. A couple of years ago, I started investing my cash reserves into the market. These cash reserves are separate from my 401k, which in hindsight I should've maxed out my contributions but hindsight is 20/20.

My plan was to keep it in the market until mid/late 2020 and then convert to CDs in the hopes the economy and housing prices will start decreasing in my area so that I can purchase a house. While the returns have been solid, it's been signifantly below some benchmarks like S&P 500. Is it worth it to sell all my current under performing equities/funds and reinvest in a index fund for a year plus, or should I just leave it in my current funds and stick to my original plan? Thanks for the replies.

When you say in the market, what's the allocation?

Allocated money with a time horizon of one or two years should be treated as if you're about to retire. CDs, money market, or if you're in stocks/bonds, a 40/60 split or something like that. At this point you aren't concerned about max return. You care about preservation of capital.

Is this house you plan to buy more of an investment or somewhere you plan to live for a while? If this is gonna be your home, then I'd say don't be too picky about the price...

Obviously be reasonable, but if you buy the right home in the right place, then the price will be worth it and won't matter much.

Hey Teflon,

When I mean in the market I mean in the stock market, equities/funds. I'm trying to squeeze out a few more percentage points of return in the next year or so, which is why I'd like to sell my underpeforming funds trade to an index fund that's closely resembling market returns.

The home I'm purchasing will be the one I'll be living at.

EDIT: After thinking about it, I'm going to reallocate to an index fund. Thanks for reading.

What's the best mobile app to browse stock prices...some news helpful too

Yahoo finance and Wall Street Journal apps

Does anyone have any experience with 1) Futures and 2) the Interactive Brokers platform?

I signed up for a paper trading account to practice trading ES. I entered a buy position this morning when ES was at 2906. The trade went up a few ticks, my P&L went up about $40 or so. Then suddenly my P&L went to $-280 out of nowhere when it appeared that the price of ES hadn't even changed. And the price eventually went up as much as 2911 but my position continued to remain negative. Is this a spread widening thing?

Never mind. Found the answer finally.

What's the best online brokerage that lets you buy leveraged ETFs (not Vanguard)?

Which ever one you already like, other than Vanguard.

Don't know the name or the story at all, but a company doesn't become the second most shorted stock on an entire exchange just because "people are panicking" or "banks are so hard to value"

Someone I know was telling me about a house they bought a few years ago in California, and told me they paid cash for it. I was under the impression that paying cash for a house is generally a bad move, although I'm not entirely sure why. Assuming the interest rate for a 30-year fixed loan would have been around 4%, it's not obvious to me that paying cash is so bad, especially given that predictions for future stock market growth are around 5.2% (according to some Vanguard publication last year). So especially if you're buying in an area that isn't speculative, you could at least debate that saving that 4% is justifiable given the current potentially overextended S&P.

I think another big piece of the argument against paying cash is that you can't benefit from the mortgage interest deduction. In the case of the person I was talking to, they were retired and receiving little income, so income tax considerations are pretty negligible. So was buying a house in cash vs. taking out a mortgage clearly a bad decision?

5.2 percent is very low for any given 30 year period

Let's say "a few years" is 3.5 years, since Jan, 2019.

The S&P 500 is up 66% if you reinvested dividends.
https://dqydj.com/sp-500-return-calculator/

Can you show us why you think it is even close to tie up that money in a house? It's pretty basic math, figure out how much the house has appreciated (if at all) and subtract the mortgage costs. If he's older and collects SS or a pension, that is treated as income and there will probably be tax savings.

Maybe you think you have some incredible insights for the next 26.5 years, but it hasn't even been close the past 3 years.

Not every decision is based on ev. Calculate the return you'd get by reducing your food expenditures by eating only ramen and canned tuna for the next ten years. Take that money and put it into stocks. Makes eating ramen better than steak.

If they felt good about paying cash, then they felt good.

I'm asking as a general question whether paying cash for a house is generally a bad decision vs. taking out a mortgage. You can't just look retrospectively at what would have happened in the S&P since they bought the house. If they'd bought the house in cash in 1999 and I were posting this in 2009, that wouldn't prove that paying cash was a great move, although I could use your same specious reasoning to say it does.

Again, my understanding is that paying cash is bad because of the opportunity cost of putting the money in stocks and because of the forgone tax write-offs for mortgage interest. But if going forward, estimates of growth in equities are within a percent of the mortgage APR, and the person is old and likely doesn't want so much risk in equities, and they can't take advantage of the tax write-off, then I'm asking what is so bad about it.

I'm not exactly on either side, but a few points in their favor:

- the first $250,000 (single) / $500,000 (married) of capital gains on a personal residence, if you lived in it 2 of the past 5 years, is completely tax free. and you can keep doing this every 2 years if you want.

- if this is the bay area and they bought "a few years ago", they may be sitting on at least $500,000 in tax free appreciation

- if this was a few years ago, they could have theoretically hit the nut low for 30y fixed mortgage rates at 3.31%. It takes an awful lot of mortgage to hit the interest and state and local tax deduction under the current tax law due to the new standard deduction. Nearly $725,000 if you're just counting interest at 3.31% (theoretical) for a married couple (standard deduction of $24,000); or closer to $640k for today's 3.75% mortgage rates. Now I doubt that anyone predicted that the new tax law would have bumped the standard deduction up that much.