Investing megathread extravaganza

[DaFace]

A place to talk about investing stuff.

[threebag]

Best investment all year was selling 90 round bales at $100 a pop.

[lewdog]

Originally Posted by scho63

I think they changed the rules back in 2017 going FROM a Roth IRA.

Better check with accountant.

Buehler is my accountant, which is why I post all this stuff on CP.

[lewdog]

5 year lookback on the S&P 500 on a weekly chart. The drop from the highs of early 2022 don't look so bad if you have made sure to invest steadily over time. It's important to not lose sight. And every time you get a raise, make sure to increase your contribution rate. I am "younger" so my favorite index funds to invest in are VOO and VXF.

[Rain Man]

I'm officially annoyed. Some company came in and stole a good stock from me.

ATCO (don't bother looking it up because it's gone now) is a shipping company. It was a great stock. I was getting decent returns and a good dividend that added up to notable low-key success. It was one of my largest holdings and was definitely a keeper.

I was doing a checkup and realized that it was no longer in my portfolio. Some stupid company bought them out and the board of directors voted for it, and apparently that gave the new company the right to go into my personal account and sell the shares.

I understand the mechanics - as a shareholder I could have voted against the purchase with my 0.0000001 percent holdings of the company. The big fish voted for it and therefore my stock is gone. But man, something seems really wrong about a company that I've never heard of being able to order my personal account to sell the stock without my permission or knowledge. If you look at it logically, they said, "we think this stock is worth more than the market, so let's take it from all of the small shareholders so we can make the money on it instead of them".

It reeks of the big guys ripping off the retail investors.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I'm officially annoyed. Some company came in and stole a good stock from me.

ATCO (don't bother looking it up because it's gone now) is a shipping company. It was a great stock. I was getting decent returns and a good dividend that added up to notable low-key success. It was one of my largest holdings and was definitely a keeper.

I was doing a checkup and realized that it was no longer in my portfolio. Some stupid company bought them out and the board of directors voted for it, and apparently that gave the new company the right to go into my personal account and sell the shares.

I understand the mechanics - as a shareholder I could have voted against the purchase with my 0.0000001 percent holdings of the company. The big fish voted for it and therefore my stock is gone. But man, something seems really wrong about a company that I've never heard of being able to order my personal account to sell the stock without my permission or knowledge. If you look at it logically, they said, "we think this stock is worth more than the market, so let's take it from all of the small shareholders so we can make the money on it instead of them".

It reeks of the big guys ripping off the retail investors.

Damn, I'm sorry that happened. I've learned so much over the last couple years about the system and it's definitely not a level playing field. It's a rigged system and the big boys do what they want.

Does the new company not have to give you some ownership though ??

I got caught in that with MMTLP, I knew it was going to be delisted but they cut off trading 48 hours early and the I now have new ownership of a company not publicly traded and have to look at a $3800 stock in my portfolio that is worthless.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Hog's Gone Fishin

Damn, I'm sorry that happened. I've learned so much over the last couple years about the system and it's definitely not a level playing field. It's a rigged system and the big boys do what they want.

Does the new company not have to give you some ownership though ??

I got caught in that with MMTLP, I knew it was going to be delisted but they cut off trading 48 hours early and the I now have new ownership of a company not publicly traded and have to look at a $3800 stock in my portfolio that is worthless.

They often trade stock of the old company with stock in the new company, but I think this is the first time that they've just cashed me out.

Now that you mention it, I guess from that perspective I'd rather get the cash than get stock in some new company that I know nothing about. I just hate losing the old stock that has done well for me.

Sometimes companies will spin off a division into the new company, and by large I hate that. They assign some value to it and say, "Hey, you're getting $2,000 of stock in this new company!", and then more often than not it goes out onto the market and immediately declines to $600 or something. I swear that companies do that just to offload debt, and they dramatically overvalue the new company. It seems like a scam.

The only company that's done right by me on the spinoffs is GE. I have a little bit of GE and they've spun off WAB and GEHC, which have both done really well for me.

In an odd story, I used to have a company with the symbol ALC. They were bought by NVS, which I also happened to own in the same account. So ALC disappeared and I got some additional NVS stock. Several years later, NVS vomited it back up. They spun off ALC into a separate company so all of a sudden I had ALC stock again. I figure I got ripped off somehow, but it was so long between the buying and selling that I don't really know how I did on that loop.

[Miles]

Sounds like someone bought the company and took it private which is always a risk since you just get dragged along in any deal that is approved by a shareholder vote. This isn’t always bad since the deal premium can sometimes end up being an overpay.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

I'm officially annoyed. Some company came in and stole a good stock from me.

ATCO (don't bother looking it up because it's gone now) is a shipping company. It was a great stock. I was getting decent returns and a good dividend that added up to notable low-key success. It was one of my largest holdings and was definitely a keeper.

I was doing a checkup and realized that it was no longer in my portfolio. Some stupid company bought them out and the board of directors voted for it, and apparently that gave the new company the right to go into my personal account and sell the shares.

I understand the mechanics - as a shareholder I could have voted against the purchase with my 0.0000001 percent holdings of the company. The big fish voted for it and therefore my stock is gone. But man, something seems really wrong about a company that I've never heard of being able to order my personal account to sell the stock without my permission or knowledge. If you look at it logically, they said, "we think this stock is worth more than the market, so let's take it from all of the small shareholders so we can make the money on it instead of them".

It reeks of the big guys ripping off the retail investors.

I got this when Cabelas got brought out by Bass Pro.

I was getting a shitload of communication about it. It might be because I bought it through an ESPP, but I got notification about the vote and my voting rights and then like a forest-worth of letters about the buyout and the funding.

It's probably different for brokered accounts, but I presume there is a chunk of cash in your brokerage account?

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

They often trade stock of the old company with stock in the new company, but I think this is the first time that they've just cashed me out.

Now that you mention it, I guess from that perspective I'd rather get the cash than get stock in some new company that I know nothing about. I just hate losing the old stock that has done well for me.

Sometimes companies will spin off a division into the new company, and by large I hate that. They assign some value to it and say, "Hey, you're getting $2,000 of stock in this new company!", and then more often than not it goes out onto the market and immediately declines to $600 or something. I swear that companies do that just to offload debt, and they dramatically overvalue the new company. It seems like a scam.

The only company that's done right by me on the spinoffs is GE. I have a little bit of GE and they've spun off WAB and GEHC, which have both done really well for me.

In an odd story, I used to have a company with the symbol ALC. They were bought by NVS, which I also happened to own in the same account. So ALC disappeared and I got some additional NVS stock. Several years later, NVS vomited it back up. They spun off ALC into a separate company so all of a sudden I had ALC stock again. I figure I got ripped off somehow, but it was so long between the buying and selling that I don't really know how I did on that loop.

Most of the time when they do spinoffs its because they want to get a higher PE ratio. I know GE (before everything went to shit) would complain incessantly because they didn't want the PE ratio of an industrial company because their medical and financial arms would have had higher PE ratios. So they spin them off, retain most of the shares in a holding company or just held by the parent company and get higher PE ratio. It's like an expense free cash infusion.

[jjchieffan]

I'm curious if any of you are invested in, or familiar with an OTC stock called AITX. I've been investing in it for a while now. The stock is cheap right now at .0062. But I believe that it has a great outlook. They are producing AI security equipment, which plays great in this economy where wages are rising and typically low paying security guard positions are hard to fill. I've seen them go from working out of a garage in California, to a large warehouse space in Detroit. Their sales and revenues are steadily increasing and they are projected to reach profitability in the next 8-12 months. When that happens, this stock should start to run. I currently have about 3/4 million shares and am building towards a million before they hit the break even point.
A big thing that I like about the company is how transparent they are. The CEO, Steve Reinhartz, has a weekly 15 minute update video for the investors, a quarterly AMA, and an annual investor open house that is recorded and posted online for those who can't go. They have weapon detection software and have donated that to several at risk, needy schools to help reduce the risk of school shootings.
They are also getting their products into movies and TV shows. Several of their devices are going to be in the Blue Beetle movie. I've already seen them on the trailer. They are also going to be in a yet to be disclosed TV show that is airing next month. I have no idea if that will help with sales, but it certainly couldn't hurt. Either way, it's kinda cool to see products from a startup company that I'm invested in to showing up in that format.
Anyway if anyone is interested in taking a look, their website is AITX.ai. You can find news releases and plenty of information there. Also, the weekly updates and AMA"s are on the AITX YouTube channel.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

I got this when Cabelas got brought out by Bass Pro.

I was getting a shitload of communication about it. It might be because I bought it through an ESPP, but I got notification about the vote and my voting rights and then like a forest-worth of letters about the buyout and the funding.

It's probably different for brokered accounts, but I presume there is a chunk of cash in your brokerage account?

Yeah, I got a bunch of cash in my brokerage account. But the market went up three percent before I noticed what had happened, so I think they made me leave some cash on the table. Coincidentally, it happened at about the same time that I had moved a bunch of cash, so it got camouflaged a bit.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by Rain Man

Yeah, I got a bunch of cash in my brokerage account. But the market went up three percent before I noticed what had happened, so I think they made me leave some cash on the table. Coincidentally, it happened at about the same time that I had moved a bunch of cash, so it got camouflaged a bit.

Yeah, its annoying your brokerage outfit didn't give you a warning bark.

[Buehler445]

Originally Posted by jjchieffan

I'm curious if any of you are invested in, or familiar with an OTC stock called AITX. I've been investing in it for a while now. The stock is cheap right now at .0062. But I believe that it has a great outlook. They are producing AI security equipment, which plays great in this economy where wages are rising and typically low paying security guard positions are hard to fill. I've seen them go from working out of a garage in California, to a large warehouse space in Detroit. Their sales and revenues are steadily increasing and they are projected to reach profitability in the next 8-12 months. When that happens, this stock should start to run. I currently have about 3/4 million shares and am building towards a million before they hit the break even point.
A big thing that I like about the company is how transparent they are. The CEO, Steve Reinhartz, has a weekly 15 minute update video for the investors, a quarterly AMA, and an annual investor open house that is recorded and posted online for those who can't go. They have weapon detection software and have donated that to several at risk, needy schools to help reduce the risk of school shootings.
They are also getting their products into movies and TV shows. Several of their devices are going to be in the Blue Beetle movie. I've already seen them on the trailer. They are also going to be in a yet to be disclosed TV show that is airing next month. I have no idea if that will help with sales, but it certainly couldn't hurt. Either way, it's kinda cool to see products from a startup company that I'm invested in to showing up in that format.
Anyway if anyone is interested in taking a look, their website is AITX.ai. You can find news releases and plenty of information there. Also, the weekly updates and AMA"s are on the AITX YouTube channel.

Interesting, thanks.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by Buehler445

Yeah, its annoying your brokerage outfit didn't give you a warning bark.

In fairness, they probably did, but I get a lot of those proxy vote notices and annual meeting notices, and I don't pay attention to them.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by jjchieffan

I'm curious if any of you are invested in, or familiar with an OTC stock called AITX. I've been investing in it for a while now. The stock is cheap right now at .0062. But I believe that it has a great outlook. They are producing AI security equipment, which plays great in this economy where wages are rising and typically low paying security guard positions are hard to fill. I've seen them go from working out of a garage in California, to a large warehouse space in Detroit. Their sales and revenues are steadily increasing and they are projected to reach profitability in the next 8-12 months. When that happens, this stock should start to run. I currently have about 3/4 million shares and am building towards a million before they hit the break even point.
A big thing that I like about the company is how transparent they are. The CEO, Steve Reinhartz, has a weekly 15 minute update video for the investors, a quarterly AMA, and an annual investor open house that is recorded and posted online for those who can't go. They have weapon detection software and have donated that to several at risk, needy schools to help reduce the risk of school shootings.
They are also getting their products into movies and TV shows. Several of their devices are going to be in the Blue Beetle movie. I've already seen them on the trailer. They are also going to be in a yet to be disclosed TV show that is airing next month. I have no idea if that will help with sales, but it certainly couldn't hurt. Either way, it's kinda cool to see products from a startup company that I'm invested in to showing up in that format.
Anyway if anyone is interested in taking a look, their website is AITX.ai. You can find news releases and plenty of information there. Also, the weekly updates and AMA"s are on the AITX YouTube channel.

That's intriguing. I was just looking today for some way to get into some AI stocks. I'll look at that one.