Coronavirus has been circulating for months now. Many of us have already beaten it. That's why spread is linear and not gripping the world like it should be at this point: The "spread" is a measurement of panic and vigilant diagnosis. This is most carefully observed cold of all time.
I was stocking up on dry goods and such like everybody else. After the past few days I feel like a panicked fool. Almost every single death report: "Had underlying health conditions."
Vigilant diagnosis? Isn't the biggest issue for the U.S. right now that we're not able to test nearly enough people?
As far as stocking up, my understanding was that the reason for picking up an extra couple items each time you go to the store was in case eventually certain areas are rec'd to work from home and such. Maybe that won't happen, but it's not like that stuff would go to waste.
If the death rate was 10% across the board we would know how far it has spread. But this cold may have a 0.001% hospitalization or death rate for people in great health. There could already be 100,000 people infected in the states.
We may be close to the point of saying "fuck it. False alarm this is just a cold. Carry on". Hard to know for sure though until a couple weeks go by
At this point the amount of evidence showing this is different than the flu is so overwhelming that you're either grossly misinformed (likely) or being disingenuous (less likely).
From the WHO and the CDC. The WHO released the figure 3.4% yesterday, and the CDC lists the flu this season as causing 18000 deaths in the US from 32 million infections = 0.05%.
This is not factual. Do the math. Starting with a couple cases, it takes 10 generations (two months) for the numbers to be large enough to be noticeable.
"Investing" and "Stock Trading" are incompatible in the same sentence, unless combined with a phrase like "does not involve".
You can buy and hold, or "Invest", on any platform which, in my opinion, has to meet three minimum requirements: It should offer commission-free trading on a variety of low-cost index funds, it should offer a variety of investment account types (at minimum, taxed accounts, Traditional IRAs, and Roth IRAs), and it should be stable.
Robinhood only meets one of these three criteria. There are dozens of other brokerages out there which do meet all of these criteria: TDAmeritrade, Schwab, Vanguard, and Chase are four great ones.
Robinhood is on the same level as a betting app for sports; so, fine; use it if that's what you want. But do not even mention the word "Invest" in the same sentence as Robinhood; its grossly irresponsible.
Sure, I'm defending starting with less than $1,000, not doing so on Robinhood specifically. Your suggestions are good, I use Schwab and Vanguard myself.
I wouldn't advocate anyone trying to build wealth to pick individual stocks, but I do think if someone were investing $1,000 to get their feet wet I'd recommend they put a bit in individual stocks. The financial system is complex and I think it's worth stripping away one level of the complexity for educational purposes. (It's typically also a humbling experience.)
I agree, this is how I started. It was well worth a couple hundred dollars in losses 2 years ago to learn the fundamentals. I considered it the cost of learning that I've more than recovered.
Now I have a much larger account, and I'm trading / investing with a much lower risk profile, because of what I learned on my >$1000 account. I consider that the exact opposite of wasting time.
> Investing under $1000, especially with commission-free trades, is a good way to learn the basics mechanics of stock trading
Individual investors are at a huge disadvantage when it comes to intraday trading.
For everything other than a child's hobby account, intended to teach emotional stability through gains and losses, a <$1,000 stock-trading account is value destroying.
you want me to risk > $1000 when I don't know what I'm doing with a real brokerage that I don't know what their benefit is over something like Robinhood because.... ?
I'm willing to loose a couple hundred to learn and understand something vs giving someone I don't know thousands and "trusting" their opinion.
More so - testing the waters myself may not make me as good as someone who does this for a living - but maybe after a few hundred and a few months, at least I have a better understanding of what a real brokerage tells me to buy than to just blindly say take my money and quadruple it.
Brokers should never be telling individual investors what individual stocks to buy, at least not anyone with less than ~$500,000 in assets. If a brokerage is giving you buy/sell lines for individual securities, that's a red flag.
A good investment platform (or adviser) guides you in portfolio management. In encourages long-term strategic thinking over short-term trading highs. The former builds wealth. The latter lines professional traders' pockets.
Why would you play with real money to learn instead of doing simulated trades? You can set up a paper trading account with Interactive Brokers for free. If simulated trading doesn't feel "real enough" because there are no stakes, then I don't think it's about learning.
That education, for a child or an adult, is primarily what one gains from a <$1k trading account. That, alone, is worth more than $1k.
Also, one need not trade a small account intraday. I make small trades, but they are always with a multi-year perspective. Give me limit orders and small commissions, and I am happy.
(N.B. I use a different broker/don't have a first-hand perspective on Robinhood.)
Unrelated but usually you should place a market order usually, not limit. Limit orders take longer to fill, your idea of limits is probably wrong and will lose money compared to a fair market match, it's not worth taking the risk that your order won't be filled, etc.
If an order isn't filled at a price at which I find reasonable, that is okay with me. A market order will fill at any price. I learned that lesson the day that a market order of mine filled at a price I deemed unreasonable.
The key to avoiding faffing around with limit orders not filling when you want immediate execution is to place a reasonable limit that accounts for the day's volatility. At other times, I'll place a limit order and let it stand for weeks. When it fills, the counterparty and I are both happy.
Different strokes I guess. Getting into/out of the position is my top priority and I see more downside in failing to fill the order than in failing to shave a penny or two.
Totally agreed on different strokes. If speed matters most, there's nothing like a market order.
I'm rarely using limit orders to shave pennies if I want quick execution. I use them to prevent the unexpected. Under normal market conditions, if the limit is set 10% beyond the expected clearing price, it provides me with free protection against a completely unexpected surprise. Something will have to have gone very wrong with my investment strategies if I'm desperate to buy/sell at any price.
In the long-game case, if I purchase a stock at $0.95 that I think can sell for $0.99, I'll immediately place the limit-order for sale as soon as I've made the purchase. No need to hide my hand -- I'll be happy if you want to buy it at that price (and I might get faster execution by being earlier in the order queue).
OP is also looking in a niche field [0]. Maybe we should be talking about their resume and what they are actually trying to get a job in? Genetics or a general programming job. I think it is fair for recruiters to be wary of someone with a PhD in genetics that is looking to get a general software job or data science job. OP needs to tell a better story and I think that might be an issue here.
Can you explain how that impacts my mental model / questions? Are you pointing out that some companies may be barely affected by coronavirus and some a lot?
Yes, and also some companies may be affected more by their own fortunes, or the fortunes of their particular industry, than by the mood of a monolithic "market."
On the advice of any good lawyer.