Tremendous

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

If you’re approved for this card, you get a $100 Amazon gift card. You also get up to 5% back on Amazon and Whole Foods purchases, 2% on restaurants/gas stations/cell phone bills, and 1% everywhere else.

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

My wife and I have gotten organic produce shipped to our house by Misfits for over a year. It’s never once disappointed me. Every fruit and vegetable is super fresh and packed with flavor. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless little lumps at salad bars until I tried theirs! They’re peppery, colorful and crunchy! I wrote a detailed review of Misfits here.

Business

Over 57,000 Sign Petition to Ban Payment for Order Flow

October 28, 2021 tremendousblog 1 Comment

At last count, 57,610 people have signed a petition at Change.org to ban payment for order flow. This practice involves market makers paying brokers for the chance to complete trades.

The market makers claim they complete the trade at slightly better than public market prices while still making a small profit.

At least one study indicates that payment for order flow actually does save customers money, especially considering that it removes the need for commissions. However, both Citadel Securities LLC and Robinhood Markets, Inc. have been fined for providing worse prices than public exchanges.

I favor not a ban, but more careful regulation of payment for order flow. I think the SEC should require brokers like Robinhood and market makers like Citadel to release data on a regular basis proving that they’re getting customers better prices than public exchanges.

Both companies are world class experts in data aggregation and analysis. They’re more than up to the task.

This type of regulation would allow retail traders to continue to trade commission free while also making sure they’re protected.

Meanwhile, if an investor doesn’t want their order sold to a market maker, Interactive Brokers offers such an account. But sure enough, it’s not free.

Many companies also sell investors their stock directly, no broker needed. Such a plan could be a great service for companies like AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. and GameStop Corp. to pursue.

So, will you be the signing petition? Let me know in the comments at the very bottom of the page.

More on markets:

Citadel Builds Huge Position in AMC Call Options

How Elrond Could Take Over Payments Worldwide

AMC May Issue Its Own Cryptocurrency, Per CEO

Photo: “Occupy Wall Street” by DoctorTongs is licensed under CC BY 2.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Business

Citadel Builds Huge Position in AMC Call Options

October 27, 2021 tremendousblog 3 Comments

Hedge fund Citadel LLC has amassed the largest position in AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc. of any hedge fund.

For investors in AMC, Citadel and its CEO, Ken Griffin, have often served as archvillains.

And not without reason. A pending lawsuit in Florida alleges that Citadel Securities LLC may have pressured Robinhood Markets, Inc. into limiting trades in AMC, GameStop Corp., and other meme stocks.

This sent their prices down and may have benefited Citadel LLC’s portfolio.

Now, Griffin and Citadel seem to have decided that if you can’t beat them, join them:

When looking at the institutional investors followed by Insider Monkey, Citadel Investment Group, managed by Ken Griffin, holds the most valuable position in AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc (NYSE:AMC). Citadel Investment Group has a $338.1 million call position in the stock, comprising 0.1% of its 13F portfolio.

With AMC’s stock up more than 17-fold for the year, Griffin seems to have realized that fighting hordes of retail traders is a losing battle.

He’s in good company. Jim Simons, legendary founder of Renaissance Technologies LLC, has been loading up on AMC shares since at least August.

Other top funds, including D.E. Shaw (former employer of Jeff Bezos), have also thrown their hats in the ring.

One of the most common sayings in markets is “The trend is your friend.” Griffin will find few friends in the meme stock community, but the trend may be on his side.

More on markets:

Jim Simons Buys AMC, Bets on Retail Trend

How Did High Dividend Stocks Perform In the Last Crash?

AMC May Issue Its Own Cryptocurrency, Per CEO

Photo: “Ken Griffin” by DanGPhotos1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Business, Technology

Polygon: Crypto’s Killer App?

October 26, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

Everyone loves Ethereum, right? It’s widely used and has a ton of code already out there for developers to slot into their projects.

But there’s one problem.

Ethereum can only process about 15 transactions per second. And the huge amount of computing power needed has gotten expensive. Some transactions can cost over $100 each.

What if there were a way to take the developer-friendly world of Ethereum and make it much, much faster?

That’s where Polygon comes in. Polygon can run at up to 65,000 transactions per second, far faster than even Visa’s huge network.

But developers can still use Ethereum-compatible blockchains and take advantage of the huge amount of code already available on Ethereum.

Similar to an API company like Plaid, the success of a smart contract platform like Polygon is all about developer adoption. The more widely it’s used, the more valuable it becomes.

Given that developers can write code on a platform they’re used to, I think Polygon will have a big advantage over most. It shows in the numbers: daily active users have gone from 750 at the beginning of the year to 192,000 in August.

Polygon is being used for a lot more than price speculation. The most popular project is QuickSwap, which lets you trade 100 cryptocurrency pairs quickly and easily.

My favorite project is Polymarket, where you can bet on real world events like elections or court cases. This could be useful for predicting the weather, a major need of agriculture businesses.

So will I be buying Polygon?

Despite its impressive technology, in a high risk investment like this, I’m looking for the possibility of a 100x return. I’d look for the same in a tech startup.

At a fully diluted market cap of $18 billion, Polygon may have already become so successful that it doesn’t make an ideal investment for me.

But I’ll be watching this awesome team to see what they come up with next!

More on tech:

How Elrond Could Take Over Payments Worldwide

How Tech Could Stop Wildfires

How Solana Could Wipe Out Visa and MasterCard

Photo: “File:Raspberry Pi Bitcoin Mining (14673305874).jpg” by Gareth Halfacree from Bradford, UK is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Business

How Did High Dividend Stocks Perform In the Last Crash?

October 25, 2021 tremendousblog 2 Comments

The Problem

I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to lose patience with bonds. The yields are rock bottom. Inflation is high.

And the interest rate outlook is pointing in one direction: up. This would mean substantial losses for bonds.

So I’ve been looking into high dividend stocks as an alternative. And not just any high dividend companies: the Dividend Aristocrats.

The Dividend Aristocrats

Ultra high dividends are nice, but if the company quickly depletes its cash and has to slash them, it doesn’t do us much good. That’s why Dividend Aristocrats are so attractive.

To get on the list, a company has to raise dividends for 25 years. Straight.

As of 2021, there are 65 Dividend Aristocrats.

The Experiment

Today, I wanted to see how some of the highest yielding Dividend Aristocrats performed in the last stock market crash. It lasted from February 19 to March 23, 2020.

The S&P 500 index lost 33.9% of its value in a matter of weeks. Not gonna lie, it was interesting. 🙂

I focused on companies currently yielding above 3%. I figured there wasn’t much point in replacing bonds with stocks that yield only slightly more.

Only 17 stocks made it into this illustrious group. Call them the Dividend Royals.

The Results

So how did the Dividend Royals do in the last crash?

Not terribly well. On average, they dropped 36%. That’s slightly worse than the S&P 500’s 33.9%.

Why did the Dividend Royals do worse? The fact that a small number of energy and real estate companies in this group suffered huge losses is one major factor.

Bonds, boring and frustrating as they are, did much better. The long-term Treasury fund actually gained 11.7%. The bond market index fund I own lost just 1.2%.

But today, they yield just 1.91% and 1.41% respectively.

Conclusion

Despite being solid, mature companies, high dividend stocks fell further than the market in the most recent crash. However, these creme de la creme of the Dividend Aristocrats all kept paying their fat dividends.

If you can stomach the capital loss, they may be a better bet.

More on markets:

Starting a Financial Plan from 0

FOMO: Investors’ Worst Enemy

Where Can We Hide in a Financial Crisis?

Note: Price data comes from Yahoo! Finance

Photo: “Stock Market Crisis Over” by Wagner T. Cassimiro ‘Aranha’ is licensed under CC BY 2.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Business, Technology

AMC May Issue Its Own Cryptocurrency, Per CEO

October 22, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

Fascinating news from AMC:

AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc., already bolstered in the past year by technology, may go even further by issuing its own cryptocurrency.
The Leawood-based company’s CEO, Adam Aron, said on CNBC that the company is getting “hyperactive” when it comes to cryptocurrency, though he added that the idea is one of several the giant theater chain is working on.

I think this is an excellent idea. AMC’s business is on an upward trend, but it still suffers from heavy debt.

Its debt, at nearly $6 billion, far exceeds its cash balance of $1.8 billion, per the most recent quarterly report.

AMC could use a lot more capital to pay off that debt and free itself to pursue a bright future. But shareholders recently voted against the issuance of new shares that could’ve brought in over $1 billion.

They don’t want their ownership position diluted, of course.

But issuing a cryptocurrency dilutes no one. It’s essentially free money.

Given the intense interest in AMC by the meme crowd, I would expect these coins to do rather well. AMC could use that money to pay off some debt and be in a stronger position for the future.

Kudos to CEO Adam Aron for this innovative idea! I hope he pursues it.

More on markets:

Robinhood Exec Dumped AMC Right Before He Limited Trades, Lawsuit Alleges

AMC Has Burned Short Sellers for $4 Billion in 2021, Per Latest Data

Will Evergrande Spark a Global Financial Crisis?

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Fun

Hamutaro: Anime’s Cutest Character?

October 21, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

My wife, who is from Japan, recently showed me a cartoon. It may be the cutest thing in the known universe:

The star: the adorable Hamutaro! Hamutaro is an enchanting little hamster who has all sorts of adventures.

In this opening song, you can see him running around the globe, playing on his wheel, and enjoying his favorite food: sunflower seeds.

If you’re wondering what they’re saying, here’s some of it, filtered through my mediocre Japanese:

“Hamutaro runs quickly.”

“His favorite is sunflower seeds.”

“Hamutaro is sleepy.”

I’ve never been into anime, but Hamutaro just might change that!

Enjoy!

More fun stuff:

The Awesome Video Series That’s Sweeping Japan Now

The Hamster Crypto Trader That’s Outperforming Me

Cute Animals Online: My Top 5

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Business, Technology

How Elrond Could Take Over Payments Worldwide

October 21, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

I recently sent a wire transfer. The money was destined for a promising tech startup. I was so excited!

Then I logged into my account a few days later and noticed a mysterious $20 charge. Next to it, the dreaded words “Wire Transfer Fee.”

Eww. Why should sending what amounts to a text message cost $20? Because they can, that’s why.

I found another bank that offers free wire transfers, which is very rare. But this experience got me thinking: what if we blew up this system?

That’s where a new cryptocurrency called Elrond comes in. Since its launch last year, this innovative coin’s price has gone vertical:

But what’s even more impressive than that is its capabilities. The Elrond Network can process up to 263,000 transactions per second.

That’s more than ten times Visa’s capacity and over 25 times Ethereum 2.0’s.

It also uses a new technique called adaptive state sharding. This means that the network can create more nodes, which process transactions, as the network grows. It can also merge them if participants leave.

This means a network that scales up and down easily. No other cryptocurrency that I know of has this feature.

So what does it cost to process payments on Elrond?

Practically nothing. In fact, someone recently transferred $17 million for less than a penny on the Elrond Network.

Take that, banksters!

One fly in the crypto ointment could be Know Your Customer (KYC) regulations. These require identity verification for all accounts and payments and are designed to avoid money laundering.

But the entire banking industry handles KYC for just $500 million a year. The blockchain could actually make it easier and cheaper by letting banks share that info. That way, each bank doesn’t have to go through the process again with the same person.

So, does Elrond work as an investment? I’m not sure, and I’m eager to hear your thoughts on that. Leave a comment at the very bottom. (I don’t own Elrond currently.)

For anything this high risk, I’d like to see the possibility of a 100x or greater return, just like with early-stage startups.

The fully diluted market cap currently sits at $8 billion. Can it get to $800 billion?

That will depend on how much of the existing financial structure it replaces.

More on tech:

How Solana Could Wipe Out Visa and MasterCard

Why I Just Invested in Kippo, Where Gamers Find Love

The Hamster Crypto Trader That’s Outperforming Me

Photo: “Hobbit House from Lord of the Rings by Michael Matti” by Michael Matti is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Business, Technology

Why I Just Invested in Kippo, Where Gamers Find Love

October 20, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

Almost every dating app out there today is fundamentally the same. You swipe, you match, you text. They have different names but offer the same one-dimensional experience. Bored yet?

Enter Kippo, a new app that specializes in helping video game fans find dates and new friends. Your profile is a lot more fun than the typical dating app blurb. You can list your favorite games and match with someone who loves them too!

You can even create fun little cards within your profile. You can show off your pet, your personality type, and more.

Kippo gives people something to bond over: the games they love. No more awkward “how’s your day going?” after you match.

And for a low pressure virtual first date, how about a little Fortnite?

Kippo is growing at warp speed as gamers flock to the platform. There just might be someone there who loves Muscle March as much as you do!

More on tech:

Male Contraception With an Ultrasound Device?

Why I Just Invested in Capbase, The Startup in a Box

How Solana Could Wipe Out Visa and MasterCard

Photo: “‘Who wants to play video games?'” by JD Hancock is licensed under CC BY 2.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

iHerb

The only place I buy vitamins and supplements. I recently placed an order and received it in less than 48 hours with free shipping! I compared the prices and they were lower than Amazon. I also love how they test a lot of the vitamins so that you know you’re getting what the label says. This isn’t always the case with supplements.

Use this link to save 5%!

Use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order.

Business, Politics

Why the SEC Report Is Crap

October 19, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

After nearly 9 months, the Securities and Exchange Commission released its report on January’s meme stock mania yesterday. Their dramatic conclusion:

There are many different types of investors, and they buy and sell stocks for many different reasons.

Good thing we’re paying these guys, huh?

The report is mostly a bland summary of the run-up in stocks like GameStop Corp., AMC Entertainment Holdings, Inc., and others. It ends with a series of milquetoast “areas for potential study” including “forces that may cause a brokerage to restrict trading”.

I’ll give you something to study: how about the internal chat logs at Robinhood in which the person who made the decision to restrict trading describes selling all his AMC shares first?

This allegation appears in a pending lawsuit in US District Court in South Florida. I find it incredible that the SEC never even bothers to mention it or investigate its veracity.

I just came back from vacation, and I was hoping to feel relaxed. But frankly, reading this report pissed me off.

This is the usual government hemming and hawing while strong evidence exists of crimes by well-connected fatcats.

The only way it’s going to change is if the public speaks out.

More on markets:

Robinhood Exec Dumped AMC Right Before He Limited Trades, Lawsuit Alleges

Robinhood Knew Its Platform Was Falling Apart, But Kept Signing Up Record Numbers of Users

AMC Fails to Deliver Are 40,000 Times Amazon’s, Per Latest Data

Photo: “CMI 101: Demystifying Derivatives with CFTC Chairman Gary Gensler” by Third Way is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

If you found this post interesting, please share it on Twitter/Reddit/Facebook/etc. using the buttons at the bottom of the page. This helps more people find the blog!

Save Money on Stuff I Use:

You already shop on Amazon. Why not save $100?

Best of all: No fee!

This platform lets me diversify my real estate investments so I’m not too exposed to any one market. I’ve invested since 2018 and returns have been good so far. More on Fundrise in this post.

If you decide to invest in Fundrise, you can use this link to get your management fees waived for 90 days. With their 1% management fee, this could save you $250 on a $100,000 account.

iHerb

Use this link to save 5%!