[vtsnowedin]

What you just saw is called a trial balloon. Have some underling put forth an idea and see what the public response is . If positive the underling has the inside track to policy but if negative he was just misinformed or speaking for himself. Seen it hundreds of times from both parties. Expect many more in the next seventy days and beyond.

[evilgenius]

Ok, the UK has moved up the date where they will phase out purely internal combustion engines. They moved it up to 2030. That is close! They moved the hybrid date up to 2035. There was just a post about trial balloons. If this is a trial balloon, then it is the biggest one ever.

It probably is a sort of trial balloon. I doubt that the US is going to adopt EV's at that same pace. They may not, however, be too far behind. The UK should uncover all kinds of problems that countries doing roll outs may face. It should point out how money can be made solving those things.

It may, also, be important to examine what data science is doing as this happens. The independent contractor model, using partially engaged individuals to fulfill what are essentially partial engagements through some data gathering repository, will fold nicely into the electric infrastructure. It will especially when self-driving cars become more available. And even more so when the various robots we are bound to become as infatuated with as we have been with drones come along. At each step there should be some opportunity for investment. And, I think people will be able to engage in owning and offering the services of fleets of these things. They will have tasks that can be readily enough defined, available for hire, and IOT connected.

I wonder what that means regarding oil? I still think oil will stage what a person would have to call a comeback. I don't think it is going to the moon. I don't think the industry will disappear, however. The US, at least, will hold back on escalating the transition, extending the industry's expected life span. Select oil stocks could go up well, from their current levels. They might not hit the highs from before the housing crisis, or, maybe, even come close. They could double, or triple, from here. It could be that they will go down a bit, and quintuple from some lower point they reach in the meanwhile.

I suppose it might become necessary to go full tilt, investing as if to never go back. Should we find out that is the case, there would probably still be some producers, but who knows if there would be much money to make in a boutique business? Most opportunity might be private rather than public in nature. Oil would, I guess, become as politically powerful as coal. That would be some switch.

[REAL Green]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'I')t may, also, be important to examine what data science is doing as this happens. The independent contractor model, using partially engaged individuals to fulfill what are essentially partial engagements through some data gathering repository, will fold nicely into the electric infrastructure. It will especially when self-driving cars become more available. And even more so when the various robots we are bound to become as infatuated with as we have been with drones come along. At each step there should be some opportunity for investment. And, I think people will be able to engage in owning and offering the services of fleets of these things.

[evilgenius]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('REAL Green', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('evilgenius', 'I')t may, also, be important to examine what data science is doing as this happens. The independent contractor model, using partially engaged individuals to fulfill what are essentially partial engagements through some data gathering repository, will fold nicely into the electric infrastructure. It will especially when self-driving cars become more available. And even more so when the various robots we are bound to become as infatuated with as we have been with drones come along. At each step there should be some opportunity for investment. And, I think people will be able to engage in owning and offering the services of fleets of these things.

[vtsnowedin]

A 300 mile range will get your EV pickup a long way into the woods. For comparison a Ford F150 diesel with a 23 gallon tank can go about 575 miles at 25 mpg (combined rating) Also a pickup bed can hold say six 250 Watt solar panels stacked or accordion hinged together that could be folded out in a pinch and give you a slow charge if the sun is out. My emergency plan is to have my 5KW Honda contractors generator and five gallon gas can in the back bed for any long trips with uncertain charging points.
And as good as the EVs are today they are rapidly getting better while ICE tech has pretty much peaked.

[vtsnowedin]

A nice uptick today based on the positive news from Maderna about their vaccine.
I took a look at what I have invested, and while a couple of choices were related to covid and the news about it, most of my choices are on established companies that pay dividends that will also likely continue to be profitable as Covid plays out.
So How am I doing? Well I have one Covid big winner and one small (for now) winner and the only loss I have is one I have not held long enough to worry about and the present loss is tiny. But if I take that one big winner out I'm only making gains like little old ladies clipping utility coupons.
I suppose I should be happy with the small but (hopefully) steady gains but of course I'll be looking for that next winner.
The search begins.

[evilgenius]

I'm investing in the future. I'm going into anything lithium that doesn't look like a scam. I'm going solar. I'm going industrial robots. I'm going to keep adding to those sort of positions.

I believe in switching to alternative energy. I also think there will be trouble along the way, and that oil will benefit when there is doubt. A huge amount of money will have to be spent to upgrade existing electrical infrastructure, so that all of those cars that would normally fill up in about five minutes, if they were gas engine cars, can sit plugged in all night. People will want to charge their cars at apartment complexes and houses split up into apartments, where it's less likely there will be charging points for everyone. They'll need a means for emergencies, when batteries give out away from home. Today, they would just go to the gas station. Infrastructure will need a build out.

Currently, I work at UPS. I can see how robots are coming. They will make that company hugely profitable. People cost money. Robots do too. Robots are, however, cheaper. Eventually, it will come down to that. UPS has to compete. UPS might be a good play on robots, eventually. Right now, they aren't even experimenting. That's being done by entrepreneurial companies that will sell what they come up with to UPS later. Opportunity seems a mess, what with which of those smaller companies will offer anything that works, and which will have had unproductive ideas. I'm looking at larger cap industrial robot companies that look like they can add tech to what they already do rather than create it from scratch.

[vtsnowedin]

Yes on the Lithium and yes to robots. One thing is that most of those robots will have Microsoft software in their electronic brains at least in part.
I need to research who are the best players in robot manufacturer and development. Boston Scientific is the only one that comes to mind with their robot dogs etc. As to Lithium, Tesla's Musk has made some moves to secure Lithium supplies mined in the US. So Tesla stock might be the way to go there.

[vtsnowedin]

Edit that last to Boston Dynamics not on Boston scientific. Owned by Soft bank group corp. Traded over the counter as SFTBF. Boston Scientific makes high tech medical products which might also be of interest going forward.

[vtsnowedin]

Well after having two losing days along with the rest of the market I managed to recover at least one days losses on the back of one of my vaccine bets.
I think it is looking good going through the winter into next summer as the vaccines roll out and start delivering ten million doses a day in the USA alone with more for the rest of the world both from American and other sources.

[careinke]

Just an update on my Crypto Investments. Not trying to convince anyone, do your own research. But here is what I know.

1. My ledger wallet balance has increased (as of five minutes ago): 15% this past 7 days; 53% over the last month (when I brought the subject up again on this board); and finally 174% over the last year including a 37% drop in March. I have not added any crypto to the wallet in the last year.

2. The current Bitcoin price is $18,422, with a mkt Cap of over 341 Billion, making it the 6th largest currency in the world. It also now has a larger market cap than any Bank in the world.

3. This latest bull run is from institutional buying, not retail buying, in a large part through Coinbase, a US exchange that has recently tripled in size to accommodate institutional buying. Pay pal has bought 70% of the bitcoin mined in the last month, Square and Grayscale are also heavily buying up the rest. A strong possibility there will be a bitcoin shortage very soon driving up the price.

4. Citibank predicts a $318,000 bitcoin price in 13 months. others have predicted prices ranging from $100,000 to $500,000 by the end of next year. It is expected to reach at least the mkt cap of gold (ten trillion).

5. There will never be more than 21 million bitcoin, over 18 million have already been mined, current rate of mining is 900 BTC per day, and halves every four years, the mining rate can never be raised. The next havening is in 2024. Around 4 million BTC have been "Lost" to never be recovered.

6. It is expected that ALL hedge funds will soon have at least 2% of their portfolio in Crypto.

7. Chartists, expect a HUGE move in the next week or two. it will either blow past the all time high of $19,987 or as Bitcoin has historically done, retreat about 33% then take off for a gain between 900 to 1300%. If it drops, I'll "hodl" onto my crypto and buy more.

8. Finally, mathematically, if you buy just .27 BTC you are in the top 1% of all BTC owners, forever. (I do own more than that, I could be in the top one percent of the top one percent.

Oh, Ether ETH, has even brighter prospects starting, well, actually few days ago.

If anyone feels like setting up a Coinbase account ask a friend who has an account to refer you, you will each get $10.00 in BTC. If you don't know anyone who has an account you can PM me. Also when you have an account, you can earn free crypto by watching 3 minute videos on different coins. Usually the equivalent of $2.00 per video. It's kind of fun to be paid to watch stuff.

Have a good day, I hope you don't mind my updates.

[careinke]

I wonder how much bitcoin is in the peak oil Make a donation QR code. I know I have donated to it, I hope they haven't lost the key.

[vtsnowedin]

Well it is the time of the month I make investments and this month I'm going to place a small white chip on Tesla. I had been planning on getting some Microsoft and Toyota motors first but they will still be there next month ,and the month after, and Tesla maybe up quite a bit in two months. Tesla is a risky bet considering the price to earnings ratio but with a Biden administration pushing electric cars I think it will do alright for the next four years. Of course Microsoft and Toyota will also make solid profits if anybody dose but if all your bets are safe then you will get safe and small returns.

[vtsnowedin]

Well I bought a sliver of Tesla today and it promptly went down 6.5% which is a suspicious pattern every time I buy a new stock.
But not to worry as my other Covid related stocks had a great day so I am well up and can withstand quite a bit of downward corrections going forward.

[JuanP]

"Pandemic threatens to crush US Dollar and plunge US economy into double dip recession, top economist warns"
https://www.rt.com/business/508290-us-d ... pse-roach/

"The economist explained that those relapses reflect a lingering vulnerability to recession and the likelihood of aftershocks. He noted that the recent record rebound after the steepest-ever decline was just technical, with the key services sector still failing to get back on track.

The world’s largest economy may contract by one percent in the first three months of next year, according to Roach. Similar figures were earlier voiced by analysts at JPMorgan.

Roach also reiterated his gloomy prediction for the fate of the US dollar, which he expects to drop over 30 percent by the end of next year. Since the pandemic wreaked havoc in the global markets in March, the Dollar Currency Index, which measures the value of the greenback against a basket of currencies, tumbled by over 10 percent."

"Euro beats US Dollar as world's most used currency, SWIFT says"
https://www.rt.com/business/507263-euro ... -globally/

"The US dollar has lost to the euro as the number one currency for global transactions for the first time in nearly eight years, said the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT).
According to Bloomberg citing monthly SWIFT data, the last time the euro was in the number one spot was February 2013.

Data from SWIFT, which handles cross-border international payments for more than 11,000 financial institutions in 200 countries, showed the European Union’s single currency was the most used one last month. It was followed by the greenback, then the British pound, and the Japanese yen. In the fifth spot was the Canadian dollar, which has moved China's yuan to sixth place."

"Statistics showed that 37.8 percent of the SWIFT cash transfers were completed in euros in October, rising six percent from about a year ago and marking the highest level since February 2013. The use of the US dollar dropped to 37.64 percent, down 4.6 percentage points.

The US currency has weakened more than 11 percent from its March peak, based on a Bloomberg index that measures it against a basket of major peers. Analysts are predicting its valuation to drop further."

What a difference a year makes. If this trend continues it doesn't bode well for Americans' savings and retirement investments and accounts. I got out of the US dollar years ago, and I have no regrets. Moved them all to silver and gold over a five year period. I am not interested in earning money, though, just holding on to what we already have is enough for my wife and I to cover our expenses for the rest of our lives.

[REAL Green]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JuanP', 'W')hat a difference a year makes. If this trend continues it doesn't bode well for Americans' savings and retirement investments and accounts. I got out of the US dollar years ago, and I have no regrets. Moved them all to silver and gold over a five year period. I am not interested in earning money, though, just holding on to what we already have is enough for my wife and I to cover our expenses for the rest of our lives.

[vtsnowedin]

As this is the covid-19 investment thread I try to stick to what investments are related to covid and leave market crash or boom opinions over on the stock market crash thread. Hopefully by next fall this thread will become obsolete and we can finish it with a summary of wins and losses received.
Might have to start a Biden/Harris administration investment thread as that will be topical longer. I hope!

[Outcast_Searcher]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('vtsnowedin', 'A')s this is the covid-19 investment thread I try to stick to what investments are related to covid and leave market crash or boom opinions over on the stock market crash thread. Hopefully by next fall this thread will become obsolete and we can finish it with a summary of wins and losses received.
Might have to start a Biden/Harris administration investment thread as that will be topical longer. I hope!

[vtsnowedin]

Well if I and all of my family get vaccinated ASAP it will be behind us and if some anti vacxers are running around still getting sick and dying I could care less.
I will get cross (being the grumpy old man I am) about having to pay the hospital bills for those stupid people but I'm sure that cannot be avoided.

[Pops]

We'd been in WA 3 years when the pandemic broke out, we'd committed to our granddaughter we'd stay until she transferred after finishing her sophomore year in college. It was a hard decision to move across country in a pandemic. But selling out on the west coast, once again to hunker down in MO seemed like the right move. We thought we would get hit because the market would surely crash before we could sell. But we discounted the lengths the gov would go to keep things afloat with low rates. We made about double the net we'd planned back in December 2019. The market was just mad. Getting the deal closed was difficult, everyone involved was backlogged and we'd pushed the price as far as it would go, had to drop $5k to meet the appraisal, a first in our dozen or so deals. But instead of $50k or so net, we made right at $100k! WooHa is right!

So we now have a $67k house in SW MO. With a $30k renovation budget we'll stay busy until my regular work starts again... hopefully. I figure we can get maybe $125-140k with a market exactly like it stands right now after we trick it out. OTOH, the market can take a good hit —say a 30% drop— and we'd not lose. If we'd have stayed in WA a 30% drop would be $100k+

I fully expect the republicans will revert to form (after their 4 year, $6 Trillion (?) spending spree behind the only bankrupt casino operator ever) and rediscover their frugal side now that taxes for the 1% are permanently cut. Anyway, there will be no further bailouts, stimulants, foreclosure/eviction forbearance, etc. GDP is off 3% I think, unemployment will be up again after the naked-faced holidays and the economic chicks will surely come home to roost will they not?

We have a tidy amount in the bank, nothing to brag about but a heart attack, a new roof and a set of snow tire's worth. I generally don't worry about the dollar, everybody wants it, but this time (and to this minute) we're proving that we are just as liable to eleck a whackadoo as the next banana republic and maybe even as susceptible to a coup, kinda makes our dollars not so safe I'm thinking. Anyway, since I don't work at nanosecond speed there is no use in me trying to go against the machines in the casino, I mean stock market. Ditto metals, which are certainly heading back down.

So I guess it's my .8% interest CD and all the insulation I can stuff in this old shack for now.