Do you feel the same about people who buy lottery tickets? Idk I’ve changed my view now that it’s gone so completely ‘mainstream’, the people who’ve bought in this past couple of years are going to be the most clueless ones and it’s anyone now, I know two of them, totally not got any idea about any of it and not interested really but thought it would be better than 0.01 % in the bank. It’s anybody, it’s being marketed in daytime tv adverts.
I don’t think the 2 are directly comparable. I’d say most people buy a lottery ticket assuming they’re not going to win, and that it would be just that “one in a million” chance if they did. People got caught with crypto because they wanted 20 percent returns for doing nothing.
I know what you mean. I can totally see how people fall into it. Footballs all over it at the moment to. It's the spinners, marketers, predators and the evangelists who deserve all the criticism they get really.
Thanks that makes some sense. I'd say it's still a gamble mind. There's no guarantee there will be a profit and things change quickly.
A gamble with an expected positive payoff means you’re the house, not the punter.
There's no guarantee to any investment, but bitcoin is zero-sum. The only way you can make money out of it is if someone else comes in and wants to buy it at more than you paid for it, but as it doesn't actually do anything other than a very minimal number of transactions that can't increase cos of its inbuilt systemic limitations, there is no room for any growth in value other than through speculation. And given that it doesn't produce value - it just burns value through the mining - at some point, someone is going to lose. That's the only way you can make money - if someone else loses money.
I'm not defending Bitcoin either by the way, or saying it's anywhere near the same as investing I was mainly intrigued as I don't know about about investing.
People who struggle with gambling in particular aren't very well known for thinking that way are they?
anyone who bought shares in Netflix at the atart of the year are now down 70%.
Netflix made $1.6billion net profit in Q1 2022, they've been profitable for a good few years now.
www.indiewire.com
It’s not about cherry-picking individual firms, though. Look:
Typically, about 90% of them in any year. So there will be some that don’t in any given year, but invest in the market as a whole and you don’t need to worry about that.
Netflix made $1.6billion net profit in Q1 2022, they've been profitable for a good few years now.
Netflix Actually Lost 200,000 Subscribers in Q1
As if its first subscriber loss in 10 years were not enough, Netflix now forecasts a loss of 2 million global paid subs in Q2.
That gives an underlying value to those shares even if Netflix aren't paying dividends yet. It's not like bitcoin which has little to no underlying value and no way of generating ret
OK, but that sounds a lot like the old adage, it's the time in the market, not timing the market.It’s not about cherry-picking individual firms, though. Look:
So, in brief, invest in the FTSE100 index and and hold it and you’ll make something like 4% return from your dividends, (which you can broadly expect to grow in line with inflation). Because companies make profits.
And how many of the companies typically make profits?
Typically, about 90% of them in any year. So there will be some that don’t in any given year, but invest in the market as a whole and you don’t need to worry about that.
All from this article:
FTSE 100 shareholders in line for £85bn dividends payout in 2022 — Yahoo Finance UK
London's bluechip index is forecast to yield a 4.2% dividend return this year.stocks.apple.com
Now, volatility of share trading comes from trying to buy and sell, because individual share prices fluctuate (although only a fraction as much as Bitcoin’s does). But that’s really missing the point. The shares themselves generate value just by owning them, because they represent an ownership of the profit of companies. Buying and holding those shares isn’t a gamble in the way most people would understand the word. By contrast, ownership of Bitcoin represents nothing and provides zero value.
The point is, that the number of retail investors boomed over the last couple of years, many of whom were fully leveraged into meme stocks (see 'stonks go up') causing an identical environment for the crypto investors.
