The stock market

[gunnarthor]

On 5/15/2025 at 2:29 PM, Mike Sixel said:

holy hell. This is unreal now.

Guess it bounced back a little this week but, oof. Looking at that 52 week high. Ouch.

[Mike Sixel]

7 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

Guess it bounced back a little this week but, oof. Looking at that 52 week high. Ouch.

It's not like my retirement depended on it...... Sigh. 

Actually, I almost put my cash in it last week. But I just couldn't do it. 

[Mike Sixel]

Turns out my former employer is even more evil than we thought. But I'm stuck with the stock for a year, I think. 

[gunnarthor]

18 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

Turns out my former employer is even more evil than we thought. But I'm stuck with the stock for a year, I think. 

"more evil than we thought" in the healthcare system is a pretty high bar. He crossed it with ease. 

[gunnarthor]

So what are folks investing in right now? The market's been pretty resilient with some of the craziness that is happening (to put it mildly). Our big holdings are the basics - index funds and then big bank stocks (WFC, USB), some tech (Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Roku), credit cards (V, AXP) and DE and KO (two really fun stocks to own, actually). 

We're going to invest a bit soon. Likely, we'll probably re-invest in some of the above but we're also looking at maybe Dr. Pepper, Costco, or Pepsi, which has been beat down a lot. 

[Mike Sixel]

I'm currently sitting on cash, making five percent. Regretting not getting back into Nvidia at 99.... But then I'm about to start using my savings.....

It's depressing to me the market loves fascism.

[gunnarthor]

52 minutes ago, Mike Sixel said:

 

It's depressing to me the market loves fascism.

Yeah. Really, really bad. 

[Mike Sixel]

Just got an offer for some more preferred stock in a winery here (so big it's not going to fail .....) at 6.5%. I'm going to go in for another 10K I think. I THINK I can send others the invite.......DM if interested.

[Mike Sixel]

I'm just stunned at this point with UHN. Truly. 

[gunnarthor]

I'm really sorry. That's a huge drop this year. 

[Mike Sixel]

9 hours ago, gunnarthor said:

I'm really sorry. That's a huge drop this year. 

It was a huge part of our retirement savings since I was there for a decade. I think we're still ok, but I'm no longer sure. 

[TheLeviathan]

On 7/30/2025 at 4:26 PM, Mike Sixel said:

It was a huge part of our retirement savings since I was there for a decade. I think we're still ok, but I'm no longer sure. 

That sucks man, sorry to hear that. 

[bunsen82]

On 7/29/2025 at 11:15 AM, Mike Sixel said:

I'm just stunned at this point with UHN. Truly. 

Mike,  as a CPA and an investor as long as some fraud hasn't occurred there will be better days,  its just going through it right now.  My basis is 310.  My hope is your basis is much lower which it should be if you worked there 10 years ago. Valuations wise health insurance and specifically UNH is beyond hated.   The trend will change.  It really appears the market wants to state it is giving it a PE of 15.  $16 earnings expected.  They threw the kitchen sink at that quarter and still ended with $4 of earning.  They have lowballed the estimates to ensure they can beat them.   My guess is $3.50 to $4 for the remainder 2 quarters,  $19-$20 for year end earnings.   The biggest thing as you know is insurance companies will just raise the premiums.  The advantage plans are already getting a 5% increase approved by the government.   My guess is revenues continue to increase from the increased prices,  even if they lose some market share.  Margins will increase and $26-$30 seems like a very achievable earnings.   My valuation has it at $420 to $450.  I was hoping for an easy 33% return.  That hasn't occurred.  I am also unwilling to throw in the towel.  I expect as the new prices for plans come out this fall and we get the next quarters report the stock should be significantly higher.    

[bunsen82]

UNH with a bit of a bounce above $250 today.  Still a long way to go.  

[Mike Sixel]

3 hours ago, bunsen82 said:

Mike,  as a CPA and an investor as long as some fraud hasn't occurred there will be better days,  its just going through it right now.  My basis is 310.  My hope is your basis is much lower which it should be if you worked there 10 years ago. Valuations wise health insurance and specifically UNH is beyond hated.   The trend will change.  It really appears the market wants to state it is giving it a PE of 15.  $16 earnings expected.  They threw the kitchen sink at that quarter and still ended with $4 of earning.  They have lowballed the estimates to ensure they can beat them.   My guess is $3.50 to $4 for the remainder 2 quarters,  $19-$20 for year end earnings.   The biggest thing as you know is insurance companies will just raise the premiums.  The advantage plans are already getting a 5% increase approved by the government.   My guess is revenues continue to increase from the increased prices,  even if they lose some market share.  Margins will increase and $26-$30 seems like a very achievable earnings.   My valuation has it at $420 to $450.  I was hoping for an easy 33% return.  That hasn't occurred.  I am also unwilling to throw in the towel.  I expect as the new prices for plans come out this fall and we get the next quarters report the stock should be significantly higher.    

My basis is tiny. So small you'd be shocked. I mean, I have an MBA in finance, so I know what's happening to some degree (the market isn't nearly so efficient as we were taught).....

[bunsen82]

2 hours ago, Mike Sixel said:

My basis is tiny. So small you'd be shocked. I mean, I have an MBA in finance, so I know what's happening to some degree (the market isn't nearly so efficient as we were taught).....

The market is always inefficient.  My bread and butter is finding hated industries and companies and waiting for fundamentals and sentiment to improve.  MBA in finance,  thats impressive.  I got my finance degree and accounting degree.  Did a couple analysis reports way back in the day, Watson Pharmaceuticals and JNJ.  More than anything,  I try to create a fundamental valuation,  and the risk/reward is worth it, I take a chance.  I almost always get in about 20% early.   My average return per a  year dropped to around 60% over the last 5 years.  Had some really good opportunities pop up over that time period.     

[bunsen82]

On 8/5/2025 at 12:25 PM, Mike Sixel said:

My basis is tiny. So small you'd be shocked. I mean, I have an MBA in finance, so I know what's happening to some degree (the market isn't nearly so efficient as we were taught).....

Well Mike I think the bottom is in for UNH. Short interest up to 15 million shares, now Buffett came out with large purchase. 

[Mike Sixel]

12 hours ago, bunsen82 said:

Well Mike I think the bottom is in for UNH. Short interest up to 15 million shares, now Buffett came out with large purchase. 

It's always nice when he moves in. 

[gunnarthor]

I have to admit, I'm enjoying Target's struggles. 

[Mike Sixel]

2 hours ago, gunnarthor said:

I have to admit, I'm enjoying Target's struggles. 

Yes. 

I think the sell off of the market might be here. But then, I've been wrong before....

[bunsen82]

UNH at $307.  Still a long way to go but slowly regaining trust in the market

I have taken a significant stab at 2 SOL treasury companies. DFDV and UPXI.  Have an average price slightly above $16 on DFDV and $7.30 on UPXI.  Let me tell you they are volatile and there is a ton of short interest. DFDV was at $20 as of Friday and it looks like they severely diluted the shareholders limiting long term upside.  Even still it looks like SOL is in the early stages of beginning a full out bull run.  It happens every 4 years and it is to occur this fall.  The chart looks right,  bitcoin dominance is declining and Ethereum has taking the lead for crypto currencies.  I would expect Sol to not be far behind and then take the lead come October before handing off to the smaller coins and then lastly the meme coins.  So what am I looking at,  being someone who had been in MSTR at $220 (before the 10 for 1 splits)  - due to calls only got 10 bagger instead of a 20 bagger this has the possibility of being even more explosive in a short period.   The median price Sol is expected to get to is $750.   Both companies are trying to increase their sol per a share.  My concern is the deals have not been nearly as accretive as what MSTR was able to do.  Is it because we are not in the moon phase of crypto's I don't know.  Effectively I was thinking you had the potential at 10X if everything went right on these 2 stocks in the next 5-6 months.  I do think based on this most recent deal I will have to back off my expectations a bit.  However 5-7 X is still a very real possibility.  Is is risky - absolutely.  Anything I get into is always risk/reward.  The reward greatly out weighs the risk in my opinion.   This is about as speculative as it comes, but I have always been concerned with the value of the $.  Not only does the US have major debt issue,  we are starting to put more and more risk on the $ by creating questions of the Fed independence.  Now could this create almost a great depression type situation where all risky assets get crushed.  Absolutely.  To me though at this time the market still is pretty confident.  My horizon is about October to November (January) at the latest.    Just thought would throw it out.  

[danunti]

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who post in this thread.  I have learned so much from you about the what and why of your different investments and made some money along the way following some of your strategies.  So, thank you from a lurker.

[Mike Sixel]

Sigh. I came SO CLOSE to buying Intel last week. Oh well. 

[Mike Sixel]

5 hours ago, danunti said:

I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who post in this thread.  I have learned so much from you about the what and why of your different investments and made some money along the way following some of your strategies.  So, thank you from a lurker.

Awesome. 

[gunnarthor]

Just to complain a bit. I bought (whatever the yearly max was) worth of Pfizer into my IRA back into 2017. In 8 years, it has been horrible. Just ugh. My dividends are set on auto reinvestment so I keep buying this turd. 

[Mike Sixel]

2 minutes ago, gunnarthor said:

Just to complain a bit. I bought (whatever the yearly max was) worth of Pfizer into my IRA back into 2017. In 8 years, it has been horrible. Just ugh. My dividends are set on auto reinvestment so I keep buying this turd. 

Ya, pharmacy killed me a few years ago....

The market is 100% disconnected from people....(different thought)

[Original_JB]

Just wondering what other people have been doing, but back during COVID (I was 55 at the time) I got out of bonds in my 401k altogether and haven't looked back. I realize we've been on quite the boom market ever since, but I just think about how much money people left on the table with the "classic" 70-30 or 60-40 splits that had been historically touted as "what to do", especially as you get older. You don't really hear much about the bond markets so much anymore. Will they ever "come back" or will people tend towards more dividend based stock portfolios?

[gunnarthor]

Stupid fun story. A long time ago when I was first learning to buy stocks through Wells Fargo, I bought 1000 dollars worth of a small pharmaceutical company, Insmed Technologies (INSM). It was a stupid buy. I didn't understand how small $1000 was back then. This was before on-line trading (at least for me) and my investment guy took $70 bucks out of the 1000, so I ended up with 70 shares at 13.28 ($930). I timed it well, the stock jumped within a month because of a potential break through so I could have sold it at something like 25/share but that would have got me 1750-another 70=1680xtax bill, and the reality was that even if I let it double, I was only making like $600 bucks. Stupid trade so I didn't do it. And so INSM has been this small holding in my portfolio for decades, not doing much. And I learned to buy stocks in bigger transactions so the costs and taxes weren't so overwhelming a problem. 

Anyhow, in May 2024, the company had some big successes and the stock has climbed a lot. It's now trading at 194/share. My $930 is now worth $13,600. 

[gunnarthor]

On 10/29/2025 at 3:21 PM, Original_JB said:

Just wondering what other people have been doing, but back during COVID (I was 55 at the time) I got out of bonds in my 401k altogether and haven't looked back. I realize we've been on quite the boom market ever since, but I just think about how much money people left on the table with the "classic" 70-30 or 60-40 splits that had been historically touted as "what to do", especially as you get older. You don't really hear much about the bond markets so much anymore. Will they ever "come back" or will people tend towards more dividend based stock portfolios?

We don't own much in bonds. Most of our money is in direct stocks (generally the "safe" ones like the big banks and big tech, and/or stocks that give good dividends) or in index funds. We also have a few savings accounts with pretty good interest rates - US Bank has something like 3.5% depending on how much is in the account. 

[Mike Sixel]

Mostly in tech..... But I have a large chunk of cash earning 4.5 percent for a few months while I try to figure it what to do with it. 

Regret a few decisions earlier this year, but overall pretty good, other than unh refusing to recover.