What other tech stock to consider?

[Cosmacelf]

Here's an interesting one for you guys. Interlock Capital is a relatively new company that connects angel investors to private companies on a syndication basis. I met the founders (they are local to me in San Diego) just a few weeks ago and I recently made an investment through them as well. Other than so far making one investment through their platform, I have zero connection to the company or the founders. I like the concept and their execution.

This is quite different from other private company brokers, so let me explain.

First, with Interlock, you are participating in an active investment round (series A, Series B, angel convert debt, etc_) as opposed to buying private shares from someone as you do with Sharespost or Forge. So while you are getting the best current company valuation, the number of opportunities are more limited and are usually only open for a short period of time.

Second, these guys do a lot of due diligence of the investments. The opportunity is very well laid out, you have access to the full financing deck, and you get due diligence commentary from the Interlock Capital founders and others who have had DD discussions with the company principals. Don't be looking for SpaceX shares here though, these are smaller companies, usually early stage, but no less potentially interesting.

Third, Interlock acts as a syndicate meaning that while private companies usually have $100K or more investment minimums (to keep the number of private investors below SEC limits), Interlock allow you to invest as little as $1K typically. Interlock aggregates all the investments together and makes a single investment into the private company, and you end up with a partnership interest into a fund that then owns shares in that private company. The upside of this is it allows you to invest in many more private companies. The downside is that Interlock takes a fee. For my Forcastr investment, they took a 6% fee off the top, and then will take a 15% carry upon successful exit.

This compares favorably to a VC fund. In a VC fund, the fund takes 2% of your investment every year for up to 5 to 10 years, and then a 20% carry on each successful exit. And you don't get to decide what you invest in. With Interlock, you can pick and choose what to invest in, and how much. They seem to put a new deal up for consideration on their platform about 1-2 times a month.

I love the platform. Closing on a deal is super easy (almost too easy ). You electronically sign a bunch of partnership documents, and then provide ACH information for direct debit from your bank account.

One of the key things Interlock wants to foster is communications among investors. So they have slack channels for discussing their deals before and after investments.

They currently have access to a MEMS technology company whose first product is in the LiDAR space (Omnitron Sensors). Very qualified management team and pedigree. I personally don't like the LiDAR space, so I'll be passing. They are also chasing a rare later stage investment with Impossible Foods. This is more interesting to me personally, so I can't wait to see their diligence package on that one if it comes to fruition.

Accessing their deal flow is super easy. Just create an account via their main page. Someone from Interlock will contact you, make sure you aren't crazy and are qualified (only accredited investors are allowed). They will then unlock your account and you can then view all the DD packages, etc. from current and past deals. Use my TMC handle (Cosmacelf) or my real name when the form asks you who referred you (I get nothing for referrals, it just allows Interlock to know how people found out about them).

Finally, I know you all know this, but investing in private companies is ESPECIALLY risky. The rule of thumb for VC funds is that out of ten investments they make, seven die, money goes poof. Two are walking dead where you can make back your investment (break even), and one goes to the moon. Or put another way, don't invest in a private company unless you can just shrug your shoulders about your investment when the company goes poof.

Edit: Meant to post this link here. Here's a recent article from the San Diego Union Tribune about Interlocal Capital: 'Not your typical startup fund:' 2 pillars in San Diego tech launch angel group

Paging @goinfraftw, @LightngMcQueen, @hershey101, @pz1975, and anyone else who wanted to invest in Impossible Foods. The above referenced Interlock Capital now has an active investment deal open to invest in it.

I think this company has lots of room to grow. It seems to be better in terms of business execution and proprietary product than Beyond Meat. The only thing giving me pause personally is the high valuation for this round. Can't say much else here, see you on the Interlock "general" slack channel if you want to discuss this more.

FYI, some random recent article about Impossible Foods: Impossible Foods prepping to go public at $10bn valuation: report

 

[wdolson]

Seems to me a lot of the gain in PTON was covid driven. I'd think by now most people already have their pandemic bikes and treadmills.

Peleton always looked like a fad to me. It was already booming before the pandemic.

Cathie Wood has been buying up Palantir, but I'm not sold on it.

Palantir started as basically a software consulting shop that built custom solutions for its small number of clients. Not a very scalable business model. Now they are productizing the internal tools they built up to sell to a bigger market without as high of a marginal cost. It's basically a GUI data visualization tool with some nice data privacy features. This is great, it makes total sense for them to do it. But there's a disconnect between this sensible expansion of the business to a larger number of less lucrative clients versus CEO Richard Karp hyping Palantir as *the* data science company.

Hype is part of a CEO's job, so I can't blame Karp for doing it. Honestly though, it's not that hard to replicate Palantir-like tools, and there's a bunch of startups here in Silicon Valley doing just that. And data visualization tools don't have the sort of network effects that, say, programming languages have.

I also find Karp's criticism of Silicon Valley to be insufferably vague. He mumbles something something about an engineering monoculture, and then says engineers shouldn't be making moral judgements about technology but should leave it to politicians and humanities majors. As an engineer the message I hear is he thinks we should just shut up and code.

Some engineers can be quite wise and there are plenty of politicians and humanities majors who make horrible decisions. Rather than judge a person's decision making ability on their college degree or profession, judge them on their past track record.

Dividends are the wrong reason to hold fossil fuel stocks. Even a high yielder, say 5%, is going to take 20 years to break even on divvies. I don't think those divvies are going to last 20 years.

The reason to hold fossil stocks right now is to take advantage of their short term recovery out of the COVID recession. There's huge pent up demand for travel, plus people will start driving to the office again. So over the next year or two there's going to be a huge uptick in oil demand, and consequently oil prices, and consequently oil stocks. We're already seeing it. But starting in the late 2020s there's going to be a real crunch in oil and gas demand as EVs and renewables spread. I wouldn't buy fossil stocks at all, but if I did I'd sell as soon as they peak out. Don't hold for the dividends!

My sister heavily invested in good dividend investments for a rather short term goal. She wanted to pay for my father's assisted living without burning through the capital. She's a Petroleum Geologist and knows that industry well. For that short term goal she did quite well. Income exceeded needs some months and rarely fell short.

My father had a long run, he died at 100, but it was still a short term strategy when she did it.

Oil stocks took a big hit last year and are still recovering. I did some analysis last night on how much they have recovered. Most of the assets are in the black since my father died, but quite a few are still in the red compared to their original purchase in the 2017-2018 time frame. My goal is to sell out when the stocks get back to their purchase price or a little better. I expect things should improve this summer. We have huge pent up demand for travel and most travel is done with fossil fuels right now.

My goals are different from my father's situation. I live just fine on my day job's income and still have years left until retirement age and probably longer until I actually retire. My father didn't retire until he was 85. I also don't want to do anything rash, so I'm planning on a slow pivot towards growth assets. At some point I might want to change to income producers, but that's going to be a while.

Great ideas on investment options the last few days. Thanks for all the leads. I did bite on ARRY and GP. I waited a few days for them to drop a little further. Shopify's stock price is a bit too high for where I am right now, though the analysis says it's a good buy right now.

Strange. You know, a few years ago when Faraday hit financial trouble a bunch of top people quit and founded Canoo. Since then, Canoo went public with a SPAC, but then the SPAC guys fired all the Canoo founders so maybe that talent is headed back to Faraday? The whole LA EV startup scene (Aerovironment, AC Propulsion, Coda, Faraday, Canoo, Fisker.v1, Fisker.v2, Karma) has produced more drama than cars over the last 30 years.

I mean, if you're ok with risk you can be bullish on Faraday. But it doesn't make sense you'd be bullish on Faraday while being bearish on Lucid. Lucid is quite clearly further along and has a lot of well known ex-Tesla people who supposedly know what they're doing, while Faraday's team (heck the entire Los Angeles ecosystem) has never built a successful automaker before.

Los Angeles is the world center for automotive design. Virtually every car maker has design centers there (including Tesla) largely because of the Southern California car culture combined with the highest rating car design college program from Art Center School of Design (my father's alma mater). Car makers have found Art Center grads don't want to leave LA, so they moved the design centers to LA.

But car design is only a part of the problem. Cars need good engineering and good production quality too. Los Angeles doesn't have a strong base for these skills.

 

[FlatSix911]

Seems to me a lot of the gain in PTON was covid driven. I'd think by now most people already have their pandemic bikes and treadmills.

Agreed... they are now offering a promo with $150 of "free" gear as the pent-up demand has evaporated along with Covid restrictions.

 

[aubreymcfato]

Dividends are the wrong reason to hold fossil fuel stocks. Even a high yielder, say 5%, is going to take 20 years to break even on divvies. I don't think those divvies are going to last 20 years.

The reason to hold fossil stocks right now is to take advantage of their short term recovery out of the COVID recession. There's huge pent up demand for travel, plus people will start driving to the office again. So over the next year or two there's going to be a huge uptick in oil demand, and consequently oil prices, and consequently oil stocks. We're already seeing it. But starting in the late 2020s there's going to be a real crunch in oil and gas demand as EVs and renewables spread. I wouldn't buy fossil stocks at all, but if I did I'd sell as soon as they peak out. Don't hold for the dividends!

I'm the worst investor there is in this forum and I know nothing, but the biggest argument - to SELL oil stocks - for me would be the lost opportunity of new dry powder to invest in TSLA while it's down .

 

[Cosmacelf]

I'm the worst investor there is in this forum and I know nothing, but the biggest argument - to SELL oil stocks - for me would be the lost opportunity of new dry powder to invest in TSLA while it's down .

Different strokes for different folks. At some point you have enough money and now you are worried about wealth preservation. That's what dividend stocks are for. I realize everyone here has high conviction that TSLA will continue to do well, but high conviction doesn't always mean you are correct. Diversification into different asset classes is a valid strategy.

Right now, I'm looking to do a portfolio rotation into an inflation defensive basket. And that means getting out of owning some muni bonds and into owning real estate (in various forms) and more stocks, dividend paying and other.

 

[gene]

For those of you invested in Lion Electric formally NGA, as of today LEV:

https://thelionelectric.com/documents/en/Project-Maple-PR-EN.pdf?fbclid=IwAR1tJhz0RCj-t-JJTaqb3Je6AgnTMoRX82r6MiuXc0NgvXWx6v3pFn8U1kQ

 

[PeterJA]

Different strokes for different folks. At some point you have enough money and now you are worried about wealth preservation. That's what dividend stocks are for. I realize everyone here has high conviction that TSLA will continue to do well, but high conviction doesn't always mean you are correct. Diversification into different asset classes is a valid strategy.

Right now, I'm looking to do a portfolio rotation into an inflation defensive basket. And that means getting out of owning some muni bonds and into owning real estate (in various forms) and more stocks, dividend paying and other.

Seems to me this traditional paradigm (dividend stocks for wealth preservation, growth stocks for growth) is being disrupted by accelerating change and technological innovation. The "safe" blue-chip dividend payers in fossil energy and commercial real estate didn't preserve wealth too well lately. Utilities have been considered safe investments for Grandma, but will they survive the rise of (Tesla-designed) microgrids and virtual power plants? Will Coca-Cola survive rising awareness of the health consequences of drinking sugar water?

Rather than trying to preserve wealth with dividends and diversification, why not look for companies that are well-positioned for societal change and diversified within themselves, whether or not they pay dividends. Considering Tesla's pace of innovation and diverse array of business opportunities, I know of no better investment for growing and preserving wealth.

Yes, high conviction doesn't guarantee correctness, but highly informed conviction makes it probable.

End of fanboy rant.

 

[willow_hiller]

Opened a very small CLII position; mainly as a means to learn what it's like to hold a SPAC through to the merger.

Seems like the frenzy from when the merger with EVgo was announced is over, and the holding company SP is down about 52% since the peak at 24.34:

They're due to complete the merger by the end of June this year. And I thought they might be a good investment anyway since 1. they're the only DC fast charging company in the US that has had the foresight to equip some of their stations with Tesla connectors and 2. they could benefit from the Biden admin infrastructure plan to build out highway chargers.

 

[aubreymcfato]

Seems to me this traditional paradigm (dividend stocks for wealth preservation, growth stocks for growth) is being disrupted by accelerating change and technological innovation. The "safe" blue-chip dividend payers in fossil energy and commercial real estate didn't preserve wealth too well lately. Utilities have been considered safe investments for Grandma, but will they survive the rise of (Tesla-designed) microgrids and virtual power plants? Will Coca-Cola survive rising awareness of the health consequences of drinking sugar water?

Rather than trying to preserve wealth with dividends and diversification, why not look for companies that are well-positioned for societal change and diversified within themselves, whether or not they pay dividends. Considering Tesla's pace of innovation and diverse array of business opportunities, I know of no better investment for growing and preserving wealth.

Yes, high conviction doesn't guarantee correctness, but highly informed conviction makes it probable.

End of fanboy rant.

I agree with @PeterJA here: "wealth preservation" is important but what is the time scale? 5-10 years? This to me is short term and I agree it would work, but long term, I have my doubts.
Ironically, I would invest in ETFs (less volatile) in a lot of different trends we know are there to stay: solar and wind energy, genomics, etc. But I guess the dividends are to sweet to let go easily.

 

[CorneliusXX]

Has anyone looked into ESS sodium flow batteries. Ramez Naam is peddling his wares on Twitter as he is an early investor in the company and they are listing via a SPAC. I think his tweets are generally quite informative and the product looks quite compelling at first glance.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1390734978862915584

 

[wdolson]

I'm the worst investor there is in this forum and I know nothing, but the biggest argument - to SELL oil stocks - for me would be the lost opportunity of new dry powder to invest in TSLA while it's down .

Whenever there is a new tech, the brands that are in front of consumers boom, but there are lots of opportunities among the less sexy, but vitally important supporting technologies. Because a higher percentage of the investors are knowledgeable and not chasing a brand name, they tend to be steady growers and not boom and bust stocks.

There are lots of opportunities today in technologies for charging infrastructure, tech for alternative energy, as well as the raw materials that will be needed to make the new tech.

@CorneliusXX posted about a company making cheap batteries for stationary storage. I've been waiting for someone to go public in this area. That will likely be a big growth area in the coming years. With reliable and cheap stationary storage, that will put coal completely out of business and will cut into natural gas as a power source.

Li-ion batteries are great for portable use because they are the most energy dense batteries, but they take a lot of management, wear out, and are expensive to make. The holy grail for stationary storage is a dirt cheap battery that takes little management and takes a long time to wear out. It could have horrible energy density and for a commercial installation like a large solar array, who cares? Commercial solar arrays in remote areas can be built on top of battery packs the size of the Gigafactory in Nevada if necessary.

When cell phones became a thing Motorola and Nokia were the brands a lot of investors were chasing, but there were a lot of companies only insiders ever heard of that built all the cell towers and all the other infrastructure. Those were good investments that steadily grew in value for years.

We're in a similar boom now in alternative energy and electric transportation and there are similar great buys in support businesses. That's what I'm looking at for investment. Tesla still has upside IMO, but it's days as a huge growth stock are probably done. The company is maturing out of the entrepreneurial phase and into the engineering phase. That means stability and growth, but nothing like the crazy growth of the last decade.

As for oil stocks, I'm definitely going to sell mine, but it would be foolish to sell them right now unless I needed the money. Oil is in a major recovery phase right now and even if philosophically opposed to the industry, it's smart investing to sell high rather than bail out at any cost. I expect the price of most oil stocks should be recovered enough by this fall to sell and walk away with something decent. That gives me more to invest in emerging technologies.

Some tech stocks may go up more than oil stocks in the next six months, but some won't. Tesla might even be cheaper by this fall. It looks like some of the institutional investors in Tesla are beginning to take their profits and reinvest them elsewhere, which is what is pushing down the price.

I did find out yesterday that I'm an indirect investor in Tesla. There are several funds in the portfolio, none I ever heard of before inheriting this stuff. One is tech heavy with stakes in Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, and Google. It pays a decent dividend too.

 

[PeterJA]

...Tesla still has upside IMO, but it's days as a huge growth stock are probably done. The company is maturing out of the entrepreneurial phase and into the engineering phase. That means stability and growth, but nothing like the crazy growth of the last decade.

Considering the size of Tesla's addressable markets in transportation (vehicle sales, trucking, robotaxis), energy (solar and storage sales, grid services, virtual power plants), and artificial intelligence (software, Dojo as a service)... and considering the size of Tesla's leads in technology and pace of innovation... Tesla's crazy growth has only begun.

 

[wdolson]

Considering the size of Tesla's addressable markets in transportation (vehicle sales, trucking, robotaxis), energy (solar and storage sales, grid services, virtual power plants), and artificial intelligence (software, Dojo as a service)... and considering the size of Tesla's leads in technology and pace of innovation... Tesla's crazy growth has only begun.

Growth curves for this kind of business or industry has always taken an S shape for a reason. They start out slow as the under funded start-ups or established businesses with underfunded teams struggle to get their arms around the new technology. Early products are made in low volume because of many factors.

Somebody breaks out of the box into mass production and things take off very quickly. After that the volumes are much greater, but the pace of change slows down. If you liken a company to a ship, a small company is like a small speed boat, fast and maneuverable. The larger the company gets, the more volume it can move at one time, but the bigger ship goes down in maneuverability and speed as it gets larger. Putting emphasis on staying fast or staying nimble helps slow down the process, but it happens anyway.

Tesla right now is a fast, light freighter in an industry full of supertankers on one end and drug smuggling speed boats on the other. They are more nimble and can move things much quicker than the supertankers, but they are can't compete with the drug smuggler boats.

Tesla will keep coming out with new products and it will keep innovating, but the stock price right now is out ahead of where the company really ia by quite a ways. That happens with high profile companies that get a lot of attention in the media.

Looks at another way, Tesla keeps evolving, but there are few, if any revolutions left. The Model S was a revolutionary product. It took a lot of givens of the car world and stood them on their head. Space X did the same with rocketry as did Apple with the smart phone. All the vehicles produced since the Model S have improved on the original design, and the Model S has been updated to include these evolutionary changes, but everything has built on the first revolutionary change.

Tesla hasn't introduced flying cars or Star Trek style transporter technology because even if possible someday, they are way beyond our current technological capabilities. And they aren't going to introduce any big leaps in the foreseeable future. We will see the same tech repackaged in new ways, many of them will be quite profitable for the company and are much needed by the world.

Tesla is probably going to see some volatility as institutional investors who rode the stock up bail out to seek other growth stocks. After that it will become a modest growth stock that settles into being one of the better tech stocks to have like Alphabet or Apple. But I think it's days of rapid growth are mostly done.

For those who want to get in for the long haul, it probably is a good bet that the company is here to stay. It's very rare that a company fails in the engineering stage and they usually grow. Any stock in the $600s a share is too rich for my portfolio right now. But if I were going to buy, I'd put in a buy order somewhere below the current price and wait and see. At some point Elon is going to say something stupid on Twitter or there will be some dramatic accident that sends the stock price into a dip. For someone who wants to be in for the long haul, that would be a buy opportunity.

Just don't hold your breath expecting it to double in the next year or two.

 

[PeterJA]

Growth curves for this kind of business or industry has always taken an S shape for a reason. They start out slow as the under funded start-ups or established businesses with underfunded teams struggle to get their arms around the new technology. Early products are made in low volume because of many factors.

Somebody breaks out of the box into mass production and things take off very quickly. After that the volumes are much greater, but the pace of change slows down. If you liken a company to a ship, a small company is like a small speed boat, fast and maneuverable. The larger the company gets, the more volume it can move at one time, but the bigger ship goes down in maneuverability and speed as it gets larger. Putting emphasis on staying fast or staying nimble helps slow down the process, but it happens anyway.

Tesla right now is a fast, light freighter in an industry full of supertankers on one end and drug smuggling speed boats on the other. They are more nimble and can move things much quicker than the supertankers, but they are can't compete with the drug smuggler boats.

Tesla will keep coming out with new products and it will keep innovating, but the stock price right now is out ahead of where the company really ia by quite a ways. That happens with high profile companies that get a lot of attention in the media.

Looks at another way, Tesla keeps evolving, but there are few, if any revolutions left. The Model S was a revolutionary product. It took a lot of givens of the car world and stood them on their head. Space X did the same with rocketry as did Apple with the smart phone. All the vehicles produced since the Model S have improved on the original design, and the Model S has been updated to include these evolutionary changes, but everything has built on the first revolutionary change.

Tesla hasn't introduced flying cars or Star Trek style transporter technology because even if possible someday, they are way beyond our current technological capabilities. And they aren't going to introduce any big leaps in the foreseeable future. We will see the same tech repackaged in new ways, many of them will be quite profitable for the company and are much needed by the world.

Tesla is probably going to see some volatility as institutional investors who rode the stock up bail out to seek other growth stocks. After that it will become a modest growth stock that settles into being one of the better tech stocks to have like Alphabet or Apple. But I think it's days of rapid growth are mostly done.

For those who want to get in for the long haul, it probably is a good bet that the company is here to stay. It's very rare that a company fails in the engineering stage and they usually grow. Any stock in the $600s a share is too rich for my portfolio right now. But if I were going to buy, I'd put in a buy order somewhere below the current price and wait and see. At some point Elon is going to say something stupid on Twitter or there will be some dramatic accident that sends the stock price into a dip. For someone who wants to be in for the long haul, that would be a buy opportunity.

Just don't hold your breath expecting it to double in the next year or two.

With bulls like you, who needs bears?

You are arguing from generalities (S-curve) and metaphors (boats) instead of specific data for this unique company. Moreover, your statements (e.g. "few, if any revolutions left") show ignorance of the publicly available data about Tesla.

Regulars in the main investor thread know that many detailed financial models based on this data suggest your opinions are baseless. I could link some (by Ron Baron, ARK Invest, Piper Sandler, Warren Redlich, Frank Peelen, etc.), but you seem uninterested in models and data, since you doubled down on generalities after I mentioned Tesla's markets and technology leads.

So I'll just say this: I have no need to hold my breath, but I do expect TSLA to double in the next year or two, and 10x or more in the next 5 to 10 years. We'll see who gets surprised.

 

[wdolson]

Not my best job of stating my case. Sorry.

A bear would be saying that Tesla is a sell or would be shorting it, spreading FUD, etc. I still think Tesla has some upside and it would not be a bad idea to hold onto it if you own some.

I just think its days of being a huge growth stock are done. It will grow, but I will be shocked if it's over $1000 in a year.

And this threat is titled "What other tech stock to consider?" That's why I'm here in this thread. I'm looking for growth stocks that are more like Tesla was in 2011 than more mature stocks that have seen the bulk of their growth.

Now I'm not putting a significant part of my portfolio in young stocks, maybe 10%. The rest is going into stable stocks with some upside. I prefer to buy at least 100 shares and I don't want to put $60K into one stock, so I'm passing on Tesla. I'm also passing on some other stocks with high prices that probably have some future growth too.

There are so many stocks out there that there are options for just about any investment strategy. There are so many choices narrowing down the field is one of the toughest parts.

 

[willow_hiller]

Are there any tech safe havens in this storm? Just looking at all the tickers mentioned here in the last few pages and it's a sea of deep red.

 

[Cosmacelf]

Are there any tech safe havens in this storm? Just looking at all the tickers mentioned here in the last few pages and it's a sea of deep red.

If you are a trader (ie buy and sell the same stock a few times a year), it would have been prudent to sell growth stocks over a month ago and go into inflation defensive stocks, or at least the S&P 500.

Right now, tech stocks are on sale! If you are looking to buy, there's more value there now than over a month ago.

I don't know the right investment strategy to maximize gains from here on out. Given Tesla's growth drivers towards the end of this year and next, at some point the stock will catch fire again, just like it did less than a month after the Cybertruck announcement in December 2019.

 

[PeterJA]

...There are so many stocks out there that there are options for just about any investment strategy. There are so many choices narrowing down the field is one of the toughest parts.

There is only one company with...

• truly vast untapped or barely tapped addressable markets (global transportation, global energy, artificial intelligence, insurance, integrated HVAC, etc.)
• huge technology leads in products, ecosystem and manufacturing (batteries, powertrain, OS software, FSD, OTA updates, supercomputers, Supercharger network, chassis casting, materials, etc.)
• genius management and world-saving mission that attract genius engineers and other talent worldwide (with first-principles thinking, freedom to fail, innovation incentives, etc.)
• unprecedented speed of innovation in their industries (according to industry experts)
• unprecedented social and political tailwinds (climate change, air pollution, energy independence)
• no credible competition or other obstacles to continued exponential growth of 50-100% annually for the next decade or more

The investment choice is easy if you educate yourself about the company. The next Tesla is Tesla.

 

[wdolson]

If you are a trader (ie buy and sell the same stock a few times a year), it would have been prudent to sell growth stocks over a month ago and go into inflation defensive stocks, or at least the S&P 500.

Right now, tech stocks are on sale! If you are looking to buy, there's more value there now than over a month ago.

I don't know the right investment strategy to maximize gains from here on out. Given Tesla's growth drivers towards the end of this year and next, at some point the stock will catch fire again, just like it did less than a month after the Cybertruck announcement in December 2019.

Stocks took a particular hit today. Almost every investment went down. The only few in the black were some of the growth stocks I bought in the last few weeks.

Over the long term logical analysis is good for picking stocks, but as you look shorter and shorter term, the markets are much more driven by human emotion. Understand the emotional triggers, avoid getting triggered yourself, and you can make some good buys and good sales when the market is chaotic with people running around either like a chicken with it's head cut off or crowds in Times Square on VJ Day.

This is a time when people are running around a bit like the chickens.

There is some real inflation going on, but it's atypical inflation. Coming out of the pandemic we're finding that many supply chains have been disrupted and it's causing prices of some things to get insane. The deck on our house needs replacing, but we've decided to wait a year because building supplies are very expensive right now. The electronics shortages are hitting many industries.

In the US there is also talk of higher taxes on investors that's making investors nervous. But so far it's just talk. And Congress has a lot on its plate right now, so it might not happen this year.

For investments that are down, just hunker down and wait out the storm. If you are sitting on some cash, now is a good time to shop for bargains. Medium to long term I'm fairly optimistic, but short term there is going to be more chaos. Just my opinion though.

 

[Cosmacelf]

There is some real inflation going on, but it's atypical inflation. Coming out of the pandemic we're finding that many supply chains have been disrupted and it's causing prices of some things to get insane. The deck on our house needs replacing, but we've decided to wait a year because building supplies are very expensive right now. The electronics shortages are hitting many industries.

I agree that a lot of the price increases we are seeing now are temporary due to supply shortages coupled with increased demand. This should only last a year or so depending on the industry.

However, we are also seeing quite a bit of money printing with, at my count, three $1.8T relief bills/budgets. Couple that excess money along with labor shortages (partially government induced via generous unemployment benefits, and partially due to reluctance to re-join the workforce due to COVID) and we will likely see wage increases. That's the real scary part since while commodity prices will come down once supply chains are back to normal, wages tend to be sticky and do not generally come down.

So ... inflation is a worry.

I do agree that there are bargains to be had in the stock market right now - and probably in beaten down real estate areas like New York. Both investments are inflation hedges.