Title: Gatlins Stock tips and money advice Source:
[None] URL Source:[None] Published:Feb 5, 2018 Author:Hopefully Gatlin Post Date:2018-02-05 18:32:47 by A K A Stone Keywords:None Views:28435 Comments:167
You wanna get rich? You just might if you follow this advice.
Obviously Gatlin knows quite a bit about trading, technicals and technicalities. If he has steadily profited over many years then he is obviously an expert at what he does, and good for him!
That does not mean that a layman who does not have the knowledge he has can simply go out and replicate what he does by buying the same things and selling the same things.
Sure, if individual trading were simply an algorithm, whereby what one person (say Gatlin) does with knowledge, savvy, and understanding not only of why he is doing what he is doing, but also why he is choosing THAT particular path instead of the other universe of possibilities, and what he is thinking of doing next, then it would be possible to replicate what he does in real time.
But we're not algorithms. When he is making his decisions in real time, he is doing so based on a whole skein of unseen judgments, considerations, weighings of opportunities and risks. He then casts his line at a certain specific moment, and from the sounds of it, catches some good fish.
But all we can do without the expertise is ape the move, at a different moment in time, when the sight picture has changed. Perhaps Gatlin would not have made the same investment at that moment.
I will stand by what Warren Buffett said and I paraphrased: don't invest in what you don't understand. Gatlin understands more things than other posters here. HE can do it because he understands the risks. Most of us don't. We can't do it. If we're going to dabble in such markets, we should do so with professional advice - and we should take the price we pay for professional advice into the calculation of what our return will be. Gatlin will take home more on the same trades, because he is doing it himself. Those of us with less experience won't take home as much, because a professional has to be paid a fee for us to do it.
Of course we can roll the dice, but that's not the sort of advice I would give. I've had too many disasters and sudden changes of fortune roll through my life to be willing to gamble more than my couple of dollars for a single lottery ticket with a big jackpot. Wealth preservation is more important to me than shoot-the-moon growth.
I think that if you "wanna get rich", the question has to be asked "at what risk of losing?" and "how much are you willing to lose?" and "over what time frame?"
I certainly skew much more conservative than anybody who invests in Bitcoin. That doesn't mean that it's "wrong" to invest in Bitcoin. It means that it's wrong for somebody like ME to invest in Bitcoin.
Knowing yourself well, knowing who you are, what you want, what you need, what the price of things is, and knowing your tolerance for risk and desire to sleep at night is important.
And that should be taken into account by anybody giving advice on the Internet, even to strangers.
AKA Stone asked an interesting question. Different folks have different views. I admire folks who can do what Gatlin represents himself as doing, and I have no reason to disbelieve him. I do know that that way is not for me - I lack the expertise, the knowledge base, or the desire to acquire knowledge of those skills.
I also know there is more than one way to skin a cat, and was giving practical advice that I think should apply to everybody.
Don't invest in what you don't understand. Who can reasonably argue with that? Gatlin UNDERSTANDS what he's doing, at least to my eyes. Do you? Do any of us? If yes, then perhaps emulating Gatlin is the best way to get rich fast. If not, then I was suggesting other routes, other ways to look at things. To quote Warren Buffett again: “Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing.” And now to quote Clint Eastwood: "A man's got to know his limitations." I do. And if we're talking about money and investment, I would advise everybody else to know his too, and to not invest in what he doesn't understand. (Yes, I'm still annoyed at having been ridiculed here for having repeated that VERY sound advice).
For a single $1000, not part of a broader plan, I suspect that a $500 sunlamp used regularly will probably add a couple of years to most Americans' lives, because as a people we are so deficient in Vitamin D, and Vitamin D is crucial to just about every system in the body. People with high levels of Vitamin D are healthier, happier and longer-lived than people without. That's why I suggested the Sperti sunlamp as an INVESTMENT if one has a mere $1000 to invest. Most busy people cannot go outside and strip to their underpants for 20 minutes in the midday sun. Most people who live north of North Carolina wouldn't want to try that in winter. But 3 minutes in front of a Sperti lamp will get that same amount of Vitamin D, and save tens of thousands in medical bills over time, and is do-able.
Lateral thinking about money is important. If you're going to sell a house soon, are you better off spending $1000 to buy a few shares of stock, or $1000 to have a gardener come in and put beds of summer flowers in the backyard? $1000 buys a lot of cheap flowers, and makes the property much more inviting and desirable - and easier to sell, at closer to the posted price. Spending $1000 to get $5000 higher on a home sale is a fantastic investment.
Think about what you know. There may be places in life where a $1000 capital investment will produce much more in long-term gains, and you get to actually live with and enjoy the benefits of your investment while you're accumulating the longer-term gains.
That's all on-topic.
If we JUST want to focus on businesses, then investments in small private businesses that due diligence shows are likely to succeed may bring a much more substantial return than any investment in marketable securities.
If we only want to limit our discussion to marketable securities, to wit: stocks and bonds, we can do that too.
The subject matter proposed is vast, and all of it is worth talking about, respectfully and thoughtfully, for everybody's mutual benefit.
Calling me an idiot, an asshole and mocking what I wrote - even where it came straight from Warren Buffett - would make this thread a waste of time. I'm not trying to waste anybody's time here. I believe I am giving good, pragmatic, conservative advice that anybody can use. And I don't think that trying to have a straight and relatively serious conversation on this topic warrants my being bullied or treated like shit. It makes me think that the people who have done that so far are ignorant shitheads to whom nobody should listen for actual money advice.
Listen to anything I have said so far, and you will not get rich quick, or at all, on just $1000. But you won't piss your money down the drain either.
You have made a number of excellent points that should be given due consideration. I find nothing to disagree with in our post. Mainly, I suppose. because I wasn’t looking specifically to find something to disagree with. Which appears to be the main intent and sole reason for the presence by some posters on LF....argumentative disruptions.
I did find two things that held my interest.
The first point ...
I think that if you "wanna get rich", the question has to be asked "at what risk of losing?" and "how much are you willing to lose?" and "over what time frame?"
I have never had a desire to get rich. The idea just simply never occurred to me. My foremost thought from the beginning in 1965 has been to preserve my capital. My motivation was to always to minimize loss. I believe that many investors think investing too aggressively is the way to go. I set each goal low so as to make sure it is attainable and not just a pipe dream. Once I attain that goal....I set the next one a little higher.... but again, also low. I am the proverbial “Old Bull” it this tale.
The next point ...
My dentist for 38 years is a firm believer in the Warren Buffett principal investment strategy and has been for many years. I paid a visit to his office last week where we always find time between his dental tasks to discuss investments and politics. I learned that his investment profits exceeded mine last year. But we both have two different time constraints....I have none and he can only work on his investments at night or weekends. Both of us are pleased doing what we individually chose to do. I enjoy the daily challenges and he is satisfied with slow progressive stability. Reading your mention of Warren Buffet made me recall this and I felt like sharing the moment and in some way acknowledging Warrant Buffet for his great accomplishments.
Same thing with airplanes and helicopters. I was always perfectly happy to let the trained mechanical crews do all of the grease monkey work. Not my specialty, not my interest either. I'll fly it, you fix it.
I was always perfectly happy to let the trained mechanical crews do all of the grease monkey work. Not my specialty, not my interest either. I'll fly it, you fix it.
What an amazing coincidence. I feel much the same way about who handles my retirement portfolio.
People who get caught in affinity fraud scams - Not. So. Much, evidently.
If you do decide to invest in bee keeping, my experience has been that the Russians are the way to go.
My first colony was some Italians I got for free from a guy who cleans up swarms. They all swarmed off the next summer.
Then I had a colony bees I got from Texas. They were great producers, but probably had some africanized genes mixed in. Not fun to work with. Had a quick freeze come through two springs ago and they all froze. All layin in the bottom of the hive - wearing Tshirts cowboy boots and shorts in 20 degree weather. Typical Texans.
The Russians I replaced the Texans with are overwintering their 2nd winter now. Healthy buzzing inside the hive and a few ladies hanging out at the door when I checked 'em today.
Collected around 100 lbs of honey last fall.
Local honey is great for allergy prevention and folks will pay if you want to sell it.
We give some away and keep the rest - using it whenever sweetener is required for baking or cooking.
That’s interesting. What about local wild bees? Is is possible to capture and domesticate a local wild hive, or does that just not work? I have a big yard I intend to fill with flowers and blackberry bushes. Having my own hive would be great (though I worry about the kids around here so probably won’t.) I wouldn’t knock down a hive of wild bees if they took up residency in the trees above. I fear a bee box too close to too many young neighbor kids.
I like this idea because I see food provisioning as a practical step towards financial independence once one has cleared the basic hurdles and starts to have investable money. Taking that which one already owns and making it a little bit productive is a great way to profitably invest small dollars. Organic spinach is $4 a pound. A garden run with spinach can produce 100 lb per year, $400 worth, for an investment of $10 for a trowel and $1 for an envelope of seeds. That’s a $389 return on an $11 investment, with no taxation - all pure gain. Find me any security that will produce a 3800% tax free return and give you a couple of hours exercise and sunlight Vitamin D to boot!
Christmas? Did you say you were in Texas? Up here in New England anything growing at all at Christmas is under glass.
Our yard is quite shady, and I'm not going to take out trees to make the yard more amenable to vegetables, but I expect I can get Siberian peas growing here, and mushrooms on the oaks. Mostly I want flowers, just for the beauty of it, but I think I can get blackberries around the perimeter.
