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2025 Investment Thread

Reli said:
I agree, REITs deserve to be in nearly anyone's portfolio. I usually have anywhere between 5-10% of my money in them. Along with another 5-10% in metals/mining.

ADC and O are interesting, but aren't they just retail landlords? Isn't retail having a hard time this year? Have you considered just using something like VNQ to capture all real estate sectors?
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Ya, their retail landlords with long term leases. Think Walmart, 7-11, and such. Their not renting to mom and pop.

I didn't intend to buy REITS. I saved a down payment (which I put into SPY at the start of COVID) for a rental property thinking prices would tank from COVID and again with interest rate rises. I was totally wrong and prices just rose. But when interest rates rose the REITS tanked by like 30-40% selling for more fair prices than rental properties. And now I just don't want to deal with rentals not that prices have decreased. So I just kinda fell into REITS as I couldn't buy rental property for fair value and didn't want everything in traditional stocks.

I don't like real estate ETF's. They (some??) include lenders, real estate sales companies, single family, retail (like shopping malls), etc. I want to own the actual land under Walmart or Caesars Palace on a 20-30 year lease.
 
mercurial said:
contracts down to 34, so a profit erosion of 50% even though the stock only went up by 8 points. Are you considering volatility measures in your trade or just targeting a specific share price?
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I have built in stop losses so that it auto closes when im close to break even once it starts running. Right now I closed out half the positions at 110% gain so the other half run free. Ill be holding them and seeing what happens. at this point they are ITM so far that they trade dollar for dollar with in value.
 
mercurial said:
I mean this is just not the right way of seeing things. Europe was making appropriate defense investments (>4% GDP) until 1990, and then over the next 35 years systematically reduced spending until they essentially were only left with bonsai armies. They even agreed to boost to 2% in 2014 and continued to fail to meet that target, miserably. Freeloading to highest degree. Now, a day late and a dollar short, they are finally ramping spending. This isn't just an American opinion, these are facts that European foreign policy wonks will freely admit. Now they have a reinvigorated Russia on their borders, producing tanks and artillery shells at 10X their industrial capacity.

I won't disagree that European citizens might now be alarmed and angry, but it's totally appropriate to ask why should we even care? What are Europe's options at this point? A grand alliance with China?
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Sadly, none of this is ever about right or wrong or even agreement on the basic facts.
Right now, Europeans are royally pissed at 1) what they see as the US welching on its side of the deal 2) what they regard as massive insults heaped upon them.
The reality is that we in the US will need to fund a much larger percentage of our arms R&D and production and have significantly fewer takers for our products.
The much bigger fear is that we may just be creating 2 world markets:
  1. the US market in which the US imposes tariffs and essentially protects inefficiency from foreign competition, and
  2. a bigger market where the rest of the world continues free trade without us. Singapore's PM just gave a compelling speech on this point. His argument is that the US essentially just expelled itself from the WTO, but there is nothing to stop the rest of the WTO's membership continuing without us.
This is a compelling argument. We are already seeing a trading bloc form which includes the English-speaking British Commonwealth, the EU and Japan as a free trade zone, which is approaching twice the size of the US market.
 
The term "We are diminished" applies to this situation, methinks. How sad.

My son's spouse is coming to the U.S.A. from Germany next week after a lengthy immigration proceeding. There are concerned about entering the U.S.A. Again, how fucking sad.

As a naturalized citizen, I am concerned how far the deportations will run, although I have never run afoul of the law. Hey, I get to write "how sad" again!
 
900ss said:
The term "We are diminished" applies to this situation, methinks. How sad.

My son's spouse is coming to the U.S.A. from Germany next week after a lengthy immigration proceeding. There are concerned about entering the U.S.A. Again, how fucking sad.

As a naturalized citizen, I am concerned how far the deportations will run, although I have never run afoul of the law. Hey, I get to write "how sad" again!
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my wife and 5yr old daughter are traveling overseas on friday; both are citizens by birth so i shouldn't be concerned, but i am. because my wife exercises her right to free speech, i'm worried she is on a list. how fucking sad. fucking cockwomble, love that word
 
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Das MotorRad said:
my wife and 5yr old daughter are traveling overseas on friday; both are citizens by birth so i shouldn't be concerned, but i am. because my wife exercises her right to free speech, i'm worried she is on a list. how fucking sad. fucking cockwomble, love that word
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I wish them a bon voyage, wonderful holiday, safe travels and a swift, trouble free entry upon your return.
 
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Yes we are also concerned about deportations expanding to naturalized citizens. Seriously considering the need to jump before being pushed. This REALLY sucks.
 
I will get a one-way ticket to the closest airport to Heard and McDonald Islands. :)
 
OldMadBrit said:
This is a compelling argument. We are already seeing a trading bloc form which includes the English-speaking British Commonwealth, the EU and Japan as a free trade zone, which is approaching twice the size of the US market.
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Sure but there is one angle that "trumps" this: Japan cannot protect it's interests from China's imperial ambitions, and Europe can't protect it's interest from Russia's imperial interests, without strong US assistance on both fronts. That's more true now, than anytime in the last 30 years. Maybe that will be different in 15-20 years if they invest massively in defense, but that's a long time to be exposed naked?
 
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Heard on the radio today during the commute, Canadian government and some of its school boards are advising citizens and students with field trips planned to avoid any non essential travel to the US. Similar suggestions being given by EU governments to their citizens.

There’s a global shift taking place that makes US investing somewhat unpredictable.
 
Isolationism holds up a much more accurate mirror of skill/ability than globalism. The next few years will tell us where we really stand in the world.
 
Bought a bit of QQQ today, not really super interested in buying this dip. It may just be a transient, but I'm long retired and happy to hold onto what I have.
 
Large movement in 10 year Treasury yields, suggestive of a lot of selling. Could be China liquidating their positions, or investors anticipating that.

It seems like we are headed toward a complete divorce with China. Europe/Mexico/5 eyes allies/Far east allies will have to pick a side. It's the end of Fukuyama's end of history.
 
I’m thinking of getting back into gold. Didn’t think I’d ever considered that again. The GLD has been on a tear the past year.
 
mercurial said:
Large movement in 10 year Treasury yields, suggestive of a lot of selling. Could be China liquidating their positions, or investors anticipating that.

It seems like we are headed toward a complete divorce with China. Europe/Mexico/5 eyes allies/Far east allies will have to pick a side. It's the end of Fukuyama's end of history.
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Remember, it's all for our own good. :laughing
 
GAJ said:
Remember, it's all for our own good. :laughing
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I'm not sure what other choice we had. We wrongly assumed that as China grew, their economy would peacefully transition to an Asian equivalent to the US. Instead, their trade surplus has doubled since 2018. Long held wisdom was that due to the one-child policy, their workforce would age and they'd give up some of their manufacturing dominance. But the curveball is AI/robotics advances, how many more years before we have robot factories that build robots that make factories?

They are going to fucking go for it, and then what for us? They export literally every good for zero marginal labor cost, and we export... American values?
 
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