bagacrap

pe ratio under 10 in 2013 to ~40 in 2024. You can't deny the multiple expansion.

The graphical aids in practical engineering videos are quite well done, especially when he creates scale models in the garage. You are missing out if you only read it, if you can afford to spend the time watching.

Does it bother anyone else when people use their teeth to scrape food off a metal utensil (rather than lips, or teeth to food)? I wish English had a specific word for that affront.

Kinda sad for me to know this because one of my favorite things about chopsticks is their precision. I can pick exactly the piece of food I feel like eating in the next moment. This makes it sound like I'm not supposed to be picky.

I don't know how that's a response to what I wrote. I'm not saying that an ETF is more tax efficient, although it is more tax efficient than a mutual fund. If you are worried about the tax drag of dividends then there are ETFs that seek to track spx, but without receiving dividends, by selling and rebuying around ex div dates. They're not established enough to trust with a lot of money, imo, but maybe it will become more normal one day.

And if you went with that maximalist definition of an index, then the word would have no useful meaning. If the inclusion criteria is completely arbitrary and capricious (i.e. whatever cathie woods decides she likes that week), then it's still a fund, it's just not an index fund.

QQQ is both arbitrary (the stock exchange has nothing to do with business operations) and capricious (they are changing the rules on a whim to serve Elon's interests, and because the arbitrary inclusion criteria somewhat forces them to).

Computer science is embarrassed by the computer.

I have witnessed people arguing with their own lawyers by pasting LLM generated output. That said, lawyers do love to argue so maybe it's fun for them.

If you honestly think that the em dashes are the problem, I'm sure you could tell chat to scrub those for you.

Also that journalists are paid for their work, often by someone with political interests, so they are already subject to pressure to modify their reporting. Hopefully not usually threats of violence though!

Commodities futures markets have an actual purpose, which is to make business inputs (or outputs) more predictable. Like if I know I need ten tons of corn next year, it's safer to buy futures now than to wait and see how the price of corn fluctuates over that time, potentially sabotaging my business operation. (Of making corn chips.)

Wall Street is doing price discovery which benefits index investors. They're also lending (e.g. private credit) which benefits economic activity.

Robin Hood options trading is just lighting money on fire under the guise of "investing", which insidiously somehow seems more responsible than gambling on roulette.

Technically you can't bet on the demise of a person, at least in the US, as participants recently discovered when the previous supreme leader of Iran was killed and their "leadership change" bet did not pay out.

Or y'know, ban this betting activity to begin with.

Who needs a bribe when they can participate in the market directly?

Thank you for proving my points.

And I'm sure there will be an inverse SpaceX ETF too. This still crosses the Rubicon from "investor" to "trader".

Index investing is a great choice for a long term investor who cares about simplicity, which should be the vast majority of them. Actually the best thing about holding individual stocks is probably the increased opportunities for TLH, but the nightmare of holding and managing hundreds of securities in your account is very seldom worth what you save on fees or deferred taxes.

SPY is somewhat concentrated in mag7 (or the other 93 stocks in QQQ), but only a small percent of mag 7 are owned via QQQ, which has 400B aum. (Mag 7 is 19T.)

The bottom line is all this fuckery is a tiny blip for most investors. It's far more concerning to me the societal harm that will come from further enriching Elon.

Then what does "index" even mean? Is Cathy Woods an index?

Context dependent I suppose. But usually they just abandon their argument. (I have never seen this tactic used when the argument had any merit to begin with, nor by someone senior to me.)

Yeah it's tough. I tend to take the path of just responding with one line to their wall of text. What are they going to do, send a second wall of text?

Oh how I wish I could curate my coworkers...

What pension plan invests in QQQ specifically?

And "pension" in the US usually implies defined-benefits, meaning you don't actually care what it invests in. If you're talking about defined-contribution retirement plans like 401k, you are very unlikely to be invested in QQQ without consciously making that decision on your own.

You are fine because you don't hold QQQ.

The top 3 most popular index fund ETFs track S&P500, which doesn't really pull this kind of shenanigan. Only QQQ tracks the NASDAQ 100 and it's in 5th place by assets under management.

You should probably read a book about index investing if you are going to invest.

Shorting is really not that straightforward. It is a avery advanced topic because it mandates the use of leverage. Many (most) investors are long-only, especially the ones being taken advantage of here.

To be fair, QQQ is not really an index fund. Unless you think that I can make up whatever arbitrary list of stocks I feel like, and call it an index, and create an ETF that tracks it, and still call that an index fund.

Vanguard is probably the most principled when it comes to passive index tracking, and they do not have an ETF that tracks the NASDAQ 100 (or any fund that focuses on a single stock exchange for some inexplicable reason).

Vast majority of index funds do not track NASDAQ 100.

vti is free float adjusted, so not as susceptible. But:

Elon will naturally do everything in his power to pump his stock, as every CEO does, and VTI buys shares in proportion to how successful that is. That is the nature of passive, market cap weighted investing.

If you want to underweight Elon's companies, or, generally, weight companies based on something besides market cap, you have to get into active or factor investing.

It mostly doesn't matter though, because if and when one stock drops, those investible dollars will likely flow into another stock, so VTI doesn't really care.