🚨 FREE MONEY INCOMING 🚨
Good news on Covid Relief Bill. Information to follow!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 27, 2020
I’d be lying if I told you I knew what that Trump tweet meant, but I have heard rumblings about another “stimulus check” being provided to us fine citizens of the US from the good ole federal government (via borrowing beyond our own tax dollars). During a recent discussion with my old pal and contributor to the site, Zig, I made some wisecrack about how I didn’t think it made a lot of sense for the US Gov to deposit $600 in my bank account.
As a guy who has been fortunate enough not to have his employment affected by COVID, I would go as far as to say I am saving quite a bit of money during this shutdown stuff. Dr. Fauci may not know it, but all of his hard work has managed to eliminate my largest monthly expense – buying $8 draft beers at local restaurants.
In response to my comment, thankfully, Zig brought me back to my senses. “Are you complaining about free money?” He quickly pointed out that the most intelligent thing to do with any free government money would be to dump it into the stock market. Because “stocks only go up” (if you are under 40 and are comfortable leaving the money to sit for 20+ years).
For the sake of full transparency – the thought also crossed my mind that the noble thing to do would be to donate the money to those who are in actual need. However, I was quickly able to talk myself out of that idea through the use of a little Reagan Economics – aka Trickle Down. Don’t quote me on this, but I’m pretty sure for every additional $100 I profit on NVIDIA, somebody out there is making $10 by doing absolutely nothing. It makes sense if you don’t think about it.
So credit to me for helping out those in need after all.
Full disclosure – I have no idea if I’d get $600 or $0 or $2000, but regardless we are going back in!
(I totally forgot how dumb this song is)
So where do we want to go today? Given that every stock in the world seems to go up regardless of circumstances (pandemic, hundreds of thousands dead, millions unemployed, unprecedented corruption in both public and private sectors, sitting president declaring election fraud, etc.), I feel obligated to give out at least one stay-away.
So let’s do 2 winners and 1 loser today. And we’ll start with the winners.
WINNER: SPHD
Being that I already gave Zig credit in this blog once, I might as well give him credit here again and pass along a winner that he handed to me. What we have here is a little fund called Invesco S&P 500 High Dividend Low Volatility ETF. Do I even need to follow up with any due diligence? With a name like that you know it’s a winner. SPHD might as well stand for “Spend Pennies for Huge Dollars.”
I’m quite certain I’ve already touched on this once before, but please make note of all of those dark D’s that are boxed horizontally near the $26/share range on the chart. Those SOBs are all dividend payouts. This fund is virtually idiot-proof. It’s literally called HIGH DIVIDEND and LOW VOLATILITY. While I’ll be the first to admit the term “low volatility” doesn’t get my jollies going, I can also recognize you shouldn’t be a complete gambling fool with every one of your stock market plays (see my Snaker’s Dozen column for an example of a fool).
On the other hand, the term “high dividend” has the jollies taking a peak around the room. They aren’t dancing, but their eyes are open and they are intrigued. In case you need any convincing that dividends are worth it, I can assure you with full confidence that Mattural is a big dividend guy. And he is well-versed into the world of finance, math, and law (he’s really just a jack of all trades). I wasn’t fully convinced on dividends myself until I crunched the numbers for these last 4 quarters and saw how much FREa$y money™ I had made.
So as far as this “Spend Pennies for Huge Dollars” fund goes, I’m staring at the chart and essentially seeing a risk-free bet that dumps dividends into your account from time to time. Close your eyes and try to picture something worse than the Coronavirus pandemic (you can’t) and then remind yourself that this bad boy is on pace to restore itself to pre-covid levels in less than 2 years time.
Here, let me show you.
If you’re still reading and haven’t invested in this thing, I don’t know what to tell you. Don’t run to the betting booth window, SPRINT!
WINNER: LOGI
Arguably my smartest play during that sell-off period (when all of those nervous nellies we’re panic-selling every stock they had) was me buying Logitech at $42. Wouldn’t you know it, COVID did not in fact make computer software stocks worthless! My condolences to Darren Rovell and all of those guys who thought the world was burning down.
To clarify – I’m not going to fault anybody who sold their airline or cruise ship stock back in March 2020. That’s anyone’s guess and I wouldn’t have known what to do either. But if you were selling tech stocks because of a super contagious severe cold – you are more likely an idiot than not.
I loved Logitech at $42 and I still like her at $93. Logitech is a force to be reckoned with amongst nearly every demographic group of people that use a computer. Whether you are a granny or a gamer, you probably use Logitech stuff.
Do me a favor right now. Look down at your work keyboard and mouse and read the brand name. There’s a 90% chance those puppies say “logitech.” You want proof? Let’s check Amazon’s best-sellers:
IT’S A BLOODBATH.
In all seriousness, other than Apple, how are those other knock-off companies cracking into the best-sellers list? Who on earth is getting on Amazon and saying “Yeah I kinda like this product here that has no apparent manufacturer name associated with it. I bet this thing will last me a couple years…Add to cart!”
Although it doesn’t appear to be the case anymore, you couldn’t even buy a Logitech webcam back in the fall. I’m pretty sure it was the equivalent to trying to buy a PS5 in today’s world. Every time BestBuy got their hands on a new shipment of inventory it would sell out within seconds. I haven’t dug into the financials, but selling more product than you can possibly produce seems like a good thing.
On that note, if it would make you feel better, I could take a quick glance at the financials….To wikipedia we go!
$3 billion in revenue and $2 billion in assets. Fire up the Happy Gilmore “is that good???”
Sidenote – saying “beginner’s luck” in response to a guy hitting a golf ball 400 yards somehow doesn’t seem like an appropriate comment.
But anyway – the bottom line is this: Who are you picking to beat the Logi boys? Razer or Poly?
That’s enough on the winners. Who’s ready to talk losers?
LOSER: PLAY
I’m sitting here racking my brain trying to think if I’ve ever been inside a Dave & Buster’s ($PLAY) in my life. I’m not positive, but I’m leaning towards no. On the other hand, I AM positive that I could not care less if I never go into one between now and when I die.
What is it about that place that looks like it serves dirty silverware and belongs inside a shopping mall? Maybe it’s the logo…maybe it’s the generic looking burger, slushie, and slinky (why is there a slinky?). But that place looks like it should be one of those mall restaurants that whiny kids drag their parents into.
Furthermore, I guarantee that every greasy-fingered patron in there is spreading their chicken wing sauce all over the game buttons. I probably should have done some more research before commenting, but how does this place even work? Do they separate the dining area from the play area or do you sit down inside the racecar with your hot wings and bud light?
Obviously COVID didn’t do this joint any favors with the nationwide shutdowns, but my gut tells me the place wasn’t trending in the right direction anyways. I’m not sure who Dave and Buster are, but I don’t think I have a ton of faith in two guys who came up with the idea of Chuck-E-Cheeses for adults.
Live look at the type of people who are “regulars” at D&B’s:
Maybe I ought to take a peak at the founding fathers, Mr. Dave and Mr. Buster themselves. If they look anything like those two gentleman above, I am going to stop writing and grab myself a short position on this company ASAP.
Ok, google images, what do you got for me?
Oh god. I didn’t see that coming, but it’s worse than I thought. I expected overweight Bud Light drinkers who despise their families and instead I got two fellas who look like their slogan is “count your fingers after I shake your hand.”
Edit: I just realized that Dave (left) passed away in 2015. So deleted all of the mean stuff I previously typed out. Well, I didn’t technically delete it, but I did a strikethrough on it.
In all seriousness, my guess is that this place’s business model will struggle through most of 2021. In case you haven’t caught on yet, I don’t think Dr. Fauci is ever going to suggest eating and drinking while sharing steering wheels with strangers is a good idea. Not in 2021. In fact, not ever again. Not to say people won’t do it, because I’m sure people are still doing it right now. But I see very little chance that the same number of people are going to frequent this place in 2021 as they did in 2019.
And also – I totally get that arcade games are thrifty and unique, but at some point I think kids will come to the realization that they’re VR mode on the Xbox980 is 1000 times better than Pacman. I think D&B’s target customer will slowly drift more and more towards adults with beer guts.
Lastly, I’m going to go out on a limb and suggest that your local tavern’s chicken wing recipe and tap system is a major step up from this place’s mass-quantity-produced shit.
Now, the one thing I will admit, that I came to realize while searching through google images looking for the actual Dave and Buster, is that the inside of this place with the 500 TVs looks pretty cool.
I’m a bit of a sucker for any establishment that allows me to drink and watch 10 games at once. So in that regard, maybe I would like to go to D&B’s. But at the end of the day, that’s not what’s going to put asses in the seats here. I think Buffalo Wild Wings already has that market cornered.
So I’m short on Dave and Buster’s. And for all 100 of those reasons above…
Snake’s Stock Corner Disclaimer: I don’t have a GD clue what I’m talking about and if you are considering using any of the above information in your real-life investment strategies then you should seek help at 1-800-GAMBLER.
Darknet — это закрытая часть интернета, куда открывается доступ только через шифрованные соединения, например, через Tor.
В даркнете можно найти как законные, так и нелегальные ресурсы, среди которых обменные сервисы и другие площадки.
Одной из крупнейших онлайн-площадок была Black Sprut, что предлагала реализации разных категорий, среди которых запрещенные товары.
bs2best at сайт
Такие площадки довольно часто функционируют на биткойны для повышения анонимности транзакций.
При этом, правоохранительные органы периодически закрывают популярные даркнет-площадки, однако на их месте появляются другие торговые точки.