The vibe I get is that most elites really don’t want to believe the president could be dumb, because that means they could be too. Elites own and/or work with a lot of stocks, and that extends to their investing decisions.
So they figure, sure, it must just be a 4D chess bluff.
Many of us hope against all evidence there is some strategic logic here, some actual plan, some intelligence behind the chaos. I’m still in denial that this could happen in the real world ……it’s just a hallucination about some real estate conman
Yeah, that’s the basic attitude I’m thinking of. Normalcy bias feed into it as well as what I mentioned about meritocracy.
I suspect it’s less common in the lower classes because if you’re poor, stability has never been guaranteed, or for that matter even reasonability. There’s no expectation that’s been set. Depending on a person’s roots there might also be cultural memory in there of previous times things went crazy.
Is anyone else disgusted by the term “elites”? It plays right into the mindset of the wealthy oligarchs, who sincerely believe they’re better than the rest of us.
Such people aren’t “elite,” they’re useless parasites that wouldn’t be able to exist if they weren’t sucking the wealth out of us. It’s time we stop using a term that kisses their asses.
And you really think “the elites” are the ones buying and selling here?
Yes, they have a lot of wealth in stocks, but usually they simply own a large chunk of their (or their parents) company and the rest is managed by a fund manager. And if you have millions or billions, you don’t need to think quarter to quarter.
Wealth is a continuum; there’s no actual dividing line, like is commonly thought. But just personally, the posher people I know are less bearish, and it looks like the trend continues once you get even higher. Big fund managers tend to be in the picture. I don’t know off the top of my head how much movement is professionals and how much is retail investors.
I feel the need to disclose that I’m personally short on the US, relative to other markets.
Edit: And I should also mention the myth of meritocracy has a wide following, it’s just extra favoured by the people who would be implied to have merit by it. And there’s the fact that most people came up in a time where this sort of thing never happened, so there’s normalcy bias on top of it all.
This is one area I’m ignorant on that I wish I knew more. How are these daytraders or fund managers avoiding capital gains taxes? When they are liquidating a position as they are selling securities, they are trying to preserve prior gains. At best aren’t they getting hit with 15% capital gains taxes on the sale? If so, the fund manager has to believe they will lose more than 15% to justify the transaction right? Again this is best case assuming they’ve held the security for more than a year. Short term capital gains taxes can be as high as 37%!
I understand folks making these vast swinging trades in their IRA or 401k where they are immune to capital gains, but how are fund managers (or regular retail after tax investors) making these wild swings without being eaten alive by taxes?
You are taxed on the gains, not on the total sale volume.
So if I buy something today for $5, and sell it tomorrow for $6, I pay the 37% on the $1 of gain.
So my takeaway is $5.63, not the $3.78 it would be I was taxed on the full sale.
It’s also worth noting that capital losses can offset gains. So if I made $1000 on one trade, but lost $1000 on another, my effective tax is $0, because I didn’t make any money.
This can get squishy though, as there are a lot of accounting loopholes you can do to count things as “losses” that are more losses on paper than actual losses.
You are taxed on the gains, not on the total sale volume.
You’re right, of course, I didn’t write that well. I’m in for the long term and don’t usually think about the smaller gains usually in short term. For me, even just the long term gains are substantial with the 45%-ish increases in value in the last couple of years prior to trump.
It’s also worth noting that capital losses can offset gains. So if I made $1000 on one trade, but lost $1000 on another, my effective tax is $0, because I didn’t make any money.
I knew this part too, but if a hedge fund/daytrader is doing this enough that their capital losses offset their gains, then they would be a pretty worthless hedge fund manager/daytrader, right?
This can get squishy though, as there are a lot of accounting loopholes you can do to count things as “losses” that are more losses on paper than actual losses.
If you’re concerned about that, you might look into index funds. Many are managed to minimize capital gains at a scale that you could never do in personal trading
I’m mostly in total market/S&P500 funds, but even the capital gains from the last 2 years are significant. Again, this was a question more of a position of hedge funds managers and day traders that do lots of short term trading, not long term retail investors like me.
One part is a reverse game of chicken, buy the dippest dip to realize most profit from less dippy dip buyers.
The other part is the assumption that this means the tariffs will never actually come or at least in a much relaxed form.
The vibe I get is that most elites really don’t want to believe the president could be dumb, because that means they could be too. Elites own and/or work with a lot of stocks, and that extends to their investing decisions.
So they figure, sure, it must just be a 4D chess bluff.
Many of us hope against all evidence there is some strategic logic here, some actual plan, some intelligence behind the chaos. I’m still in denial that this could happen in the real world ……it’s just a hallucination about some real estate conman
Yeah, that’s the basic attitude I’m thinking of. Normalcy bias feed into it as well as what I mentioned about meritocracy.
I suspect it’s less common in the lower classes because if you’re poor, stability has never been guaranteed, or for that matter even reasonability. There’s no expectation that’s been set. Depending on a person’s roots there might also be cultural memory in there of previous times things went crazy.
Is anyone else disgusted by the term “elites”? It plays right into the mindset of the wealthy oligarchs, who sincerely believe they’re better than the rest of us.
Such people aren’t “elite,” they’re useless parasites that wouldn’t be able to exist if they weren’t sucking the wealth out of us. It’s time we stop using a term that kisses their asses.
I’ve started referring to them as the “Problem Class”
Nobody likes being called an elite, don’t worry.
And you really think “the elites” are the ones buying and selling here?
Yes, they have a lot of wealth in stocks, but usually they simply own a large chunk of their (or their parents) company and the rest is managed by a fund manager. And if you have millions or billions, you don’t need to think quarter to quarter.
Wealth is a continuum; there’s no actual dividing line, like is commonly thought. But just personally, the posher people I know are less bearish, and it looks like the trend continues once you get even higher. Big fund managers tend to be in the picture. I don’t know off the top of my head how much movement is professionals and how much is retail investors.
I feel the need to disclose that I’m personally short on the US, relative to other markets.
Edit: And I should also mention the myth of meritocracy has a wide following, it’s just extra favoured by the people who would be implied to have merit by it. And there’s the fact that most people came up in a time where this sort of thing never happened, so there’s normalcy bias on top of it all.
This is one area I’m ignorant on that I wish I knew more. How are these daytraders or fund managers avoiding capital gains taxes? When they are liquidating a position as they are selling securities, they are trying to preserve prior gains. At best aren’t they getting hit with 15% capital gains taxes on the sale? If so, the fund manager has to believe they will lose more than 15% to justify the transaction right? Again this is best case assuming they’ve held the security for more than a year. Short term capital gains taxes can be as high as 37%!
I understand folks making these vast swinging trades in their IRA or 401k where they are immune to capital gains, but how are fund managers (or regular retail after tax investors) making these wild swings without being eaten alive by taxes?
You are taxed on the gains, not on the total sale volume.
So if I buy something today for $5, and sell it tomorrow for $6, I pay the 37% on the $1 of gain.
So my takeaway is $5.63, not the $3.78 it would be I was taxed on the full sale.
It’s also worth noting that capital losses can offset gains. So if I made $1000 on one trade, but lost $1000 on another, my effective tax is $0, because I didn’t make any money.
This can get squishy though, as there are a lot of accounting loopholes you can do to count things as “losses” that are more losses on paper than actual losses.
You’re right, of course, I didn’t write that well. I’m in for the long term and don’t usually think about the smaller gains usually in short term. For me, even just the long term gains are substantial with the 45%-ish increases in value in the last couple of years prior to trump.
I knew this part too, but if a hedge fund/daytrader is doing this enough that their capital losses offset their gains, then they would be a pretty worthless hedge fund manager/daytrader, right?
This is the part I’m ignorant about, I think.
If you’re concerned about that, you might look into index funds. Many are managed to minimize capital gains at a scale that you could never do in personal trading
I’m mostly in total market/S&P500 funds, but even the capital gains from the last 2 years are significant. Again, this was a question more of a position of hedge funds managers and day traders that do lots of short term trading, not long term retail investors like me.