• Hector@lemmy.world
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    12 hours ago

    If the last 5 years has taught me anything, it is that stock prices are completely divorced from the realities of the fundamentals of business. It is a clown economy and more like a casino then an honest measure of what a stock is worth. Especially with tech.

    AI is way overhyped, to a level we perhaps have never seen before, but I would not expect the stock prices too reflect that.

    Look at Tesla. The intrinsic value was no more than 10 billion before he started sieg heiling on national TV and alienated half of the western world.

    What will continue to drive the stock prices is the support or acquiescence of governments to it. Do you the United States and the rest that follow.

    • wetbeardhairs@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      10 hours ago

      Look at Tesla. The intrinsic value was no more than 10 billion before he started sieg heiling on national TV and alienated half of the western world.

      My conspiracy theory is that Musk gave multiple investors billions of his personal cash to invest in Tesla stock at key moments. He tells his straw purchasers when to buy hundreds of millions worth of stock in order to pump the price and kill those who short the stock. This scares the shorters out of the market and ultimately removes a natural source of downward pressure on the price. They sell off what they purchase all at once relatively slowly so they can then do it again.

      • Hector@lemmy.world
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        9 hours ago

        I had a similar sort of thought but figured it was an automated thing, where they would buy or sell to manipulate the market price with the fund removed from the owners of stock.

        Something like that could have made a fortune as the stock price was gaining and as such been able to manipulate the shit out of the stock price and fuck short Sellers and everything.

    • cecilkorik@lemmy.ca
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      12 hours ago

      but I would not expect the stock prices too reflect that.

      Agreed. One rule of the stock market is that while it might theoretically rely on sound fundamentals, it can stay irrational longer than you (or anyone) can stay solvent. It will inevitably fall screaming towards reality eventually, but there’s no guarantee it will happen within any reasonable timeframe and expecting it to is dangerous. It’s a rigged casino, the house always wins, and when they don’t their goons will grab you when you try to leave. At this point the billionaires own pretty much the entire house, and their goons are running the world’s largest military and police state. “Invest” at your own risk.

      • Hector@lemmy.world
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        10 hours ago

        I think there is a fundamental difference now, the government has bailed out stocks twice in 2008 and 2020. Moved Heaven and Earth with the fed and indirect injections of capital to prevent the rich from losing money. So these stock prices reflect tax dollars billing them out in the downturn.

        • T156@lemmy.world
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          6 hours ago

          Why bother worrying about the downturn if the world bends over backwards to stop you hitting the ground?

          It is basically impossible for Visa to go bankrupt, for example. The moment the threat looms, governments are going to leap in and save them. They’re too big to fail.

      • ISOmorph@feddit.org
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        11 hours ago

        Serious question. With inflation absolutely exploding everywhere, stock market being what you just described here, and property ownership being virtually impossible due to big corpos gulping everything up: how is anyone supposed to prevent their money from melting away nowadays?

        • wewbull@feddit.uk
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          3 hours ago

          I’m actually wondering if we’re headed towards a deflationary event. I don’t think the underlying customer base can support a lot of the prices now as wages have stayed well below inflation, plus I believe some of the inflation is artificial profit taking. Oil is half the price it was a few years ago, so transportation of goods should be a lot cheaper. Energy as a whole has been getting cheaper too as new renewable generation comes online, so those costs come down too.

          The economists would think some deflation would be the worst thing ever, but the inflation spike of the last few years doesn’t seem to have a solid foundation.

        • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
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          10 hours ago

          I moved all my 401k monies into international funds several months back. I’m killing it on my returns. I am not a financial advisor, however. (Not that I think most of them aren’t buffoons)

          • rc__buggy@sh.itjust.works
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            9 hours ago

            I offshored about half of my holdings, maybe Europe won’t go down with the ship.

            Planner wasn’t happy the money left her firm but I got a real, “I get it” vibe. It did cost me some value in fees but I managed to do it right before I hurt my back and can’t work so what’s done is done.

    • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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      11 hours ago

      The price isn’t based on what the company is worth, it’s based on what people think the company will be worth in the future. Clearly, a lot of people believe that truly autonomous vehicles are just around the corner, and AI is going to revolutionise everything.

      They’re most likely wrong, but it will take a long time for the market to accept that.

      • Hector@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        No rational person would think that Tesla would command the majority of that market of autonomous vehicles, robots, or whatever. Especially not after their Flagship truck turned out to suck in like 20 different ways.

      • suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world
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        11 hours ago

        it’s based on what people think the company will be worth in the future

        Not a single person in their right mind thinks that Tesla will ever be worth its current $1.3T market cap. Stock price is based on whether the market movers (not you or I) think that the price will be higher or lower a few weeks/months from now, that’s it. The actual intrinsic value/worth of the company makes no difference.

        • Ilovethebomb@sh.itjust.works
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          11 hours ago

          As someone on r/Wallstreetbets once said, I can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.

          There’s enough people who genuinely believe the company is worth that to keep the value high for a very long time.

          • suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            There’s enough people who genuinely believe the company is worth that to keep the value high for a very long time.

            I don’t think there are. I just think there are a lot of people who believe they’re going to be able to get in and out before the Tesla bubble pops. Actual, realistic value of the company has nothing to do with it.

      • FreedomAdvocate@lemmy.net.au
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        10 hours ago

        You’re correct about how the stock price works, but I’d go even further to add that it’s also based on what a small percentage of very wealthy people/funds want it to be at the time. The markets are so insanely easy to manipulate by them.

        As for the rest, it’s almost certain that you’re the one that’s wrong - autonomous vehicles are absolutely the future. They could essentially end road fatalities, as well as allow commute time to be included as work hours as people could work while being driven to work, passive income via auto-taxi etc.

        AI/LLM/etc, there’s zero doubt here that it is going to - if it hasn’t already, which I’d argue it already has - revolutionise the world. It’s already completely changing many industries beyond belief, and its uses and “intelligence” is already growing exponentially. It’s just the cool thing to hate by anti-capitalists/lefties because of various reasons, and make no mistake - the anti-AI people, and the people who think it’s just a fad or that it’s overrated, will be looked at like the people who thought of cars in the same way.

        What we have now is like the DOS of AI and self driving cars compared to the Windows XP/7/11 versions that are coming, but the detractors are acting like it’s the finished product and will never improve. It’s here to stay, and what we have now is only scratching the surface.

        • jordanlund@lemmy.world
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          10 hours ago

          For those of us who have been around the block a few times, AI is going to just be invisible in a few years, replaced by the new marketing buzzword, probably “Quantum”.

          Source: Seen it before when the word was “Cloud”. Oh, it’s all in the Cloud! Cloud, cloud, cloud.

          Before that it was “Virtualization”. It’s going to make everything more efficient!

          Man, I need to make an AI powered quantum cloud virtualization.

          • Womble@piefed.world
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            5 hours ago

            Quantum entangled communications that are impossible to evesdrop on exist now, cloud computing is the money machine that allows Amazon to keep expanding, virtualisation is used by effectively every company using computers at scale. (blockchain, I’ll admit, was pretty much all hype and vapourware other than laundering drug money and allowing speculation)

            Just because there is marketing hype around a term doesnt mean there isnt anything of value there.