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birb_cromble  8hr ago (text post)   127 thread views

Weekly Finance Thread

A weekly thread to discuss financial matters - from personal all the way up to global.

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  • Remember that we're all just Internet randos. Don't bet your life savings on a hot tip from this thread.
  • Keep culture war in the culture war thread. Yes, global events may impact our personal finances, but that does not mean we have to incessantly harp on culture war aspects here. If you are going to discuss it, please stick to the practical impacts of it on an individual level.
  • Be kind. Remember that everyone here comes from different circumstances. We all have different resources available and different risk tolerances.
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I've been slowly building a position in SLV since September. Up to 86 shares. That's +86 delta, but my total position's net delta is 226 when counting the short puts. That means at this exact price level, my position simulates the ownership of 226 shares of SLV. I also own a very small position in GLD.

Other smart people online have told me that an oil crisis and a strong dollar work against precious metals, and I believe they're right. But looking through that, I believe Fed independence is on borrowed time, the only way out of the US debt crisis is with money printing and engineered inflation, and I think the "debasement" trade that was on at the turn of this year will resume in fits and starts as the US overplays its leverage as the controller of the most popular reserve currency.

This may not even come to pass within the next decade or so, which would make me early, which would make me wrong. So I'm trying not to get too crazy with the position sizing.

How does the price of SLV and the NAV of SLV correlate to the spot price of physical silver? Reading the prospectus, it seems like it is actually holding a fair amount of physical silver in trust, but I'm out traveling for the weekend and I can't really dig.

Why would Trump be making 3,600 stock trades a quarter? I ask out of genuine curiosity as it's very high frequency indeed and doesn't match any model I have of how to invest outside of an algorithmic Jane St style approach.

(If this topic is considered too culture war related, though, please feel free to delete.)

Charitably, it could be tax loss harvesting. At high net with and income strategies like that can get pretty intense.

Can the wordcells of the Motte come up with an alliteration for the title of a weekly finance thread on Saturday, to make it fit in with the other weekly threads? Maybe Solvency Saturday?

Monday has no other weekly thread so we can do Market Mondays.

I'm a pithy person. What about just $aturday?

Sensible Savings Saturday

Sustainable Spending Saturday

Savings and Spending Saturday

Savings Saturday

Securities Saturday

Sobbing Shareholders Saturday

Soaring Stonks Saturday

Shaky Stagflationary Saturday

30 year Treasury yields are popping off

The longer-dated 30-year Treasury bond yield was last trading more than 3 basis points higher at 5.183%. It briefly hit 5.197% during the session, marking its highest level since July 2007.

The 10-year U.S. Treasury note yield — the key benchmark for mortgages, auto loans and credit card debt — was up 4 basis points to 4.667%. Earlier in the session, it climbed to 4.687%, or its highest level since January 2025

This doesn't seem like a great sign. It does make me wonder what kind of risk premium you'd accept before buying a 30 year right now. My gut feel, given current conditions, is that 5.2% is too low. I might start thinking seriously about it at 6%, but if we hit 6%, I think we'd have enough other problems that I might not have the money to spend on one.

More broadly, I'm getting concerned about stagflation. Inflation is persistently coming in above targets, consumer sentiment is in the shitter, and outside data center construction, the economy has been more or less flat for about six quarters now. Am I being overly pessimistic here?

I wouldn't buy a US 30 year at anything under like 6.5%, too much risk on too long a time horizon. Inflation protected wise I'd be happy to purchase at CPI+2% yearly.

I wish TIPS weren't taxed the way they are. It seems almost perfectly self-defeating

Here in the UK fortunately gilts, inflation protected or not, are CGT free (but coupons on gilts are taxed as income, make it make sense...).

I think we might be talking past each other. I was talking about treasury inflation protected securities.

and outside data center construction, the economy has been more or less flat for about six quarters now.

If you can't beat them join them.

I was watching a Gamers Nexus video ranting about Nvidia abandoning the PC market. He was enraged, and I felt his rage. I like PCs too! I'd like to enjoy building a new one again, with brand new screaming fast parts I'm excited to take for a spin.

Alas, the angrier Steve gets, the more money Nvidia makes, and I've certainly enjoyed my 5000% gains and my new dividend that's over 20% of my initial investment yearly. When your cost basis is $4, a $1 yearly dividend feels insane. I know that's not how you do the math, but it's still wild to think about.

So I'm talking to my wife about that, and how it feels a little wrong to be doing so well off of a company that is acting so against my principles and interest. But damnit, I've got bills to pay, and I'm not gonna be the only chump not getting my bag.

This is crazy haha. How did you manage not to sell when it 10xed? Or 20xed? Or 30xed? Etc.? Did you forget about it, or do you have some sort of "no selling before I retire" approach?

I was watching a Gamers Nexus video ranting about Nvidia abandoning the PC market. He was enraged, and I felt his rage. I like PCs too! I'd like to enjoy building a new one again, with brand new screaming fast parts I'm excited to take for a spin.

I wonder if the GPU market will bifurcate such that AMD just takes over the PC gaming sector, with Nvidia just abandoning it altogether. I don't know what the state of things is with respect to AMD's chips running AI, but as of a couple years ago, it seemed to require a ton of hacks to make it work at a small fraction of the speed as on Nvidia's chips. But AMD's chips still render games nearly as well as Nvidia's.

One major problem is that local GPUs seem heavily likely to be relied upon to do generative-AI-related processing in future games, and so Nvidia seems likely to have the edge for PC gaming GPUs as well. I personally got a 4090 back when that was still top-of-the-line, explicitly because I knew I wanted to use it for generative AI - I never even considered getting an AMD at all, no matter how much of a better deal it might be for my gaming needs. And that pattern could repeat over and over again going forward.

We might need a sort of government-mandated splitting of Nvidia in the future or something, though obviously that has its own issues, and the cure could very well be worse than the disease.

AMD also doesn't care about the desktop. For a time it looked like Intel might make an effort, but the rumors are consistently that they've killed that line of products.

Nobody is coming to save us.

Nobody is coming to save us.

Time to be the change I want to see in this world!

"Claude 6.9, generate a step-by-step plan that a sub-100 IQ individual with ADHD and chronic procrastination issues can and WILL follow for starting my own company that will produce GPUs that are compatible with current standard PC hardware and software, at performance levels roughly equivalent to current top-of-the-line models produced by existing companies in the field. Starting capital: about tree fiddy. Make no mistakes."

I'm in a weird place with Nvidia. I'm invested in them indirectly through various funds, but I'm getting a little concerned.

In my neck of the woods, you can't buy 2B limestone anymore. It doesn't matter how much money you have, the quarries are completely tapped on supply. They can only sell at the rate they can get it out of the ground. Since you need that for leveling foundations and making concrete, that must be slowing down data center construction. If that's true, and something like 80% or more of Nvidia's revenue is from data center build outs, I worry what even a small to medium hiccup in construction could do. How long could they sit on inventory before investors get antsy?

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