The same VALE we discussed in January? (Any Stockpickers out there? - #449 by Your_Full_Name)
Can’t say the FASTgraph today looks much different from January – just shite as always. 
In other news, I sold some Southern, bought some more Edison International.
While I like the earnings curve of SO better, I wanted to exchange some of an overvalued Utility for some of a seemingly undervalued one for a few hundred bucks of additional income. 
I manage the portfolio for my parents. Because it is not my money, I don’t do the stupid shit that I do in my own portfolio.
So it is not surprising that their portfolio has outperformed mine significantly. YTD, they are up 21% versus 8% for me. In the last 12 month, they are up 29% vs 12%.
There’s a poker saying that goes something like “It’s not enough to know how to play poker well. You have to also play poker well.” 
Wow, what is in it? OK, I only have it real-time and today seems to be a down day, but:
YTD: SP500 9.67%, Dow 6.79%, Nasdaq 11.26%, Russell2000 6.08%, my dividend strategy 10.76%, my momentum strategy 11.64%. Your parents beat all of that!
I have to go off my memory, but largest positions are:
Is anyone else tempted to buy Nestlé?
It’s still not cheap, but hasn’t been at its current valuation basically since the GFC.
I updated my analysis and it doesn’t look like a buy to me. If you compare the low net effect of share reduction and the huge amount they use for buybacks, then you don’t need to look where the shares are going… And now they are low on ammo if you look at the equity ratio
Yes. I’d already bought a little while ago.
I also sold GOOG, so I’m challenging Cramer as a contrarian indicator right now.
I haven’t really checked this in detail, but according to the recent half year report they concluded their buyback program in December 2024 so perhaps the buybacks also occurred when their stock price was still high – kind of the opposite of what I would like to see.
What I really don’t like is that they had to increase their debt to finance the dividend payout … 
(FASTgraphs claims they have no debt, but I don’t know what they’re smoking).
At least with their AA- credit rating they can probably raise debt at beautiful rates.
Don’t feel bad. I sold my last (stock grant) GOOG in September 2020.
Indeed, there is a table in this article. 33bn spent on prices >100 CHF
Don’t feel bad. Me myself, I didn’t buy BTC back then in 2009.
Indeed, it could be worse.
I remember in maybe 2013 (or 2014?) sharing my then three (!) desk office with two researchy type colleagues, one of whom owned this thing called Bitcoin (which to nerd-me back then just looked like a fancy Merkle tree, so meh. Plus I did not know much about investing anyway). But the other office colleague already described the Bitcoiner – which wasn’t yet a term back then, I think – as being affluent (which was a word I had to look up) thanks to being an early Bitcoin “investor” (can’t help but put this in quotes).
IIRC the price of a Bitcoin surged from maybe ten or twenty bucks early in that year about 10 or 20 fold or so until Spring (around the time the one colleague called the other affluent).
By the end of that year the price had increased about 100 fold or so compared to the beginning of that year. Said Bitcoiner colleague left the company. I assume he sold – hopefully only partially – at around $1000 or $2000.
It’s still all speculation. I’m prepared to die on this hill.
Are we going off topic here ? Failed opportunities
If only I knew a bit about finance and investment, GOOG was a no brainer for me at an early stage, at a point I made a corporate case about this young startup losing a lot of money during my studies. Getting laughed at, even by the teacher, I knew very well something big was coming. Soon afterwards I got my first income and I invested it right away in this promising company and got rich in months put it into my saving account.
Edit: noob doesn’t know how to strikethrough
Wait …I thought this – “Missed opportunities” – was the main forum motto?
Same same.
Things you miss, things you fail. I missed BTC -I…what’s that, a daisy chain with SHA256 that produces…value, money?-, I failed GOOG -I knew-. Life. Not only on that forum, not only finance..
And was absolutely right to build an emergency fund as a first thing.
This is the stock pickers thread. Whenever you put money you don’t need into something else then a stock you think will skyrocket you are doing ROMO. Risk Of Missing Opportunities, my own creation.
Now don’t confuse ROMO with FOMO
ROMO: risk that you put your money into something boring (or have it occupied covering sold options) instead of buying good opportunities.
FOMO: risk that you are afraid to miss gains and throw your money at expensive stocks after they have risen. Basically what most ETF do.
Your ROMO has been known as opportunity cost for the last 300 years.
TLDR: ROMO includes laziness and speaks of risk, not cost.
Good point. The main difference I see is ROMO (like FOMO) includes not doing nothing while opportunity cost is tied to a real and a hypothetical action. Money, time, risk, performance and other things of the two actions are compared and the difference is the opportunity cost. I like the word “risk” better, because for me it is mainly a risk (of missing) and not a cost.
But then for two actions it is basically the same. Like having to hold on to a stock or cash with better alternatives because one has sold options. I haven’t found a single option seller who takes this into account, maybe the new term helps a little. There both terms would apply.
Not sure if one can say “the opportunity cost” if there is just a missed action involved, cost of what, compared to what? OK, one could say “not doing nothing” is an action too, for me it is a risk. Maybe if one is consciously holding cash (like I do for my spending in CHF, EUR, USD and some smaller currencies) one can speak of the opportunity cost of laziness instead of ROMO.
And of course ROMO sounds better. 
I understand your ROMO as missing very long shots that come along. Opportunity costs is something that you can reasonably estimate, i.e. “stocks market growth by 5% inflation adjusted per year “. ROMO is like buying Nvidia/Tesla/Bitcoin in 2019 and selling in 2020, if you know what I mean.
I think the trick is compare the right things, the right risks. A very long shot for some option sellers is a big and sometimes ignored risk, while ROMO is almost always ignored.
