[vtsnowedin]

Something of interest.

https://www.liquidpiston.com/

While they say it is not a "Wankel" engine it looks like just a slight modification from that design to me. The Wankel's suffered from seal problems between the rotor tips and the combustion chamber walls and their video does not show how the have addressed or solved that problem. Also they skip showing how injector pumps and lubrication pumps are powered and the lubrication flow diagram. And I must say those two very critical assemblies do have numerous moving parts.
It would be interesting to watch a bench test of their engine under load run to failure. ICE engines can often run for the equivalent of 600,000 loaded miles if the lubricating oil is changed while under operation.

[Newfie]

You looked at it more closely to an I did.

I was curious/doubtful about their claim of 30% improved efficiency.

Still might be worth some investment. Things dont have to make sense or work, just catch the public eye.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Something of interest.

https://www.liquidpiston.com/

While they say it is not a "Wankel" engine it looks like just a slight modification from that design to me. The Wankel's suffered from seal problems between the rotor tips and the combustion chamber walls and their video does not show how the have addressed or solved that problem. Also they skip showing how injector pumps and lubrication pumps are powered and the lubrication flow diagram. And I must say those two very critical assemblies do have numerous moving parts.
It would be interesting to watch a bench test of their engine under load run to failure. ICE engines can often run for the equivalent of 600,000 loaded miles if the lubricating oil is changed while under operation.

THAT"S what my subconscious was yelling at me about, re the video. The Wankel engine. (I didn't have the audio turned on, not wanting to listen to the gee-whiz marketing spiel.)

Like you, I'd want to see serious tests about DURABILITY after several to many hundreds of thousands of miles, in statistically significant numbers, before I placed any bets.

I think that kind of thing is why MANY ideas being tested in labs don't scale up to successful operation resulting in massive gains in new stock offerings, much less seeing commercial operation at scale at all.

But it's always good to see innovative industrious folks trying new things. Because SOME of them work out great, and make the world a somewhat better place, over time, doomer denial or not.

[vtsnowedin]

Some innovation is truly new and has potential but much of what you see is just reworking old ideas with clever marketing to suck in naive investors dollars. Much like reopening a played out mine during a price spike to just rework the tailings piles long enough to sell a bunch of stock and abscond with the cash or a dot.com company that had no sales and a burn rate that made any future profits impossible.
Sorting out those with good ideas with potential from the shysters is a difficult task that takes a clear eye and a lot of well placed skepticism. Of course if you never look for or consider a start up you will never find the next Microsoft or Apple until well after the market has out bid you on it.
Happy hunting.

[Outcast_Searcher]

Of course if you never look for or consider a start up you will never find the next Microsoft or Apple until well after the market has out bid you on it.
Happy hunting.

Again, I guess my natural cowardice (borne of experience) comes into play.

I'm "adventurous" enough to do a considerable amount of investing globally / ex-US via things like the Vanguard International Stock Index Fund, just letting that grow over decades and in far higher proportion than Vanguard recommends for standard diversification. Same thing for efficient market and frontier market funds. Presumably a lot of good growth stocks will be part of such funds over time, without me having to figure out which specific ones.

Same thing by investing in things like the Vanguard Small Cap Growth Index fund. Some of those companies will do great, some will go bankrupt, and I don't have to try to figure out which ones.

And over the decades, I've done well enough picking companies doing well like MSFT, INTC, AAPL, IBM, etc. after they became well known to the market, that I certainly wouldn't knock that. Mainly there, I don't get greedy and let one position get too big, preferring to, for example, sell some on splits beyond some point.

At the end of the day, it's the RISK ADJUSTED returns over the long run that matter to your portfolio, and one can lose a significant amount of money trying to pick successful tiny company X, scores of times, and being mostly wrong. (I have, which is why I pretty much don't do that any more).

Each to their own. The stock market can produce serious returns over time, just with simple things like solid broad based indexes, if one is patient, sticks with it, and doesn't get too greedy. And that is a very high probability play, which is good enough for me as an old fart who doesn't like getting punched in the face any more.

I suppose it depends on if you're trying to be comfortable, resilient, and know you can pay the bills, or if you're hoping to strike it rich.

[vtsnowedin]

.................
Each to their own. The stock market can produce serious returns over time, just with simple things like solid broad based indexes, if one is patient, sticks with it, and doesn't get too greedy. And that is a very high probability play, which is good enough for me as an old fart who doesn't like getting punched in the face any more.

I suppose it depends on if you're trying to be comfortable, resilient, and know you can pay the bills, or if you're hoping to strike it rich.

I quite agree and have the those face punch experiences in my past as well. As I have already retired and my cash flows are adequate I don't really need any additional income from the market so all I'm doing is using some of my cash reserves more profitably then sitting in a zero interest savings account.
I started just buying a couple of hunch stocks related to the covid pandemic and both Moderina and Pfizer have been good so far. Then being pretty fiscally conservative I bought some well established dividend paying stocks like Exxon and Toyota with a couple of other hunches like Tesla and UPS.
After doing some reading I'm now moving to low cost index funds FNILX for the whole market and ONEQ for the Nasdaq 100. As you say they are reliable trackers of the whole market and save the trouble and extra risks of doing you own diversification.
I do plan to keep the individual stocks I already have and will probably put about a quarter of my inputs into others as the index funds are boring and I need a hobby.

[evilgenius]

I tend to think that what is going on with short sellers and stocks like Gamestop is an evolutionary thing. Throughout history, there has been a move to achieve a type of equality among people. It's the sort of thing that is reflected in how although people don't feel rich they are, nonetheless, eating better and living better than any king from a few hundred years ago.

I was reading something on the BBC earlier. In that article, a short seller said that they thought the financial system was rigged. Maybe that sounds like a Trump rant? It doesn't reflect the impact of probability, for instance, upon life, especially upon a complex thing like the markets. I mean, is the system rigged, or wasn't it merely suffering from what the conditions of more limited participation make of it? Does this simply mean that it will be harder to short things so easily, so obviously? Before, a hedge fund could be more certain they weren't setting themselves up for failure when they locked themselves into those positions. Now, maybe that isn't the case. I wonder if this means something important to the system has broken?

One of the things we learn in life is that 'it takes money to make money.' It takes money to short too. That fact always gave short sellers an advantage. The Gamestop action, though, is not one person who doesn't like their stock being shorted. It is many people all of one mind who don't. That gives them as much power as a hedge fund having capital. It isn't a surprise to me that this has happened with a company that wove its place into the formative years of many of the people who are fighting the shorts. Consumer boycotts, mostly for the grocery store, never got off the ground in the 70's, when oil was spiking. A more organized effort to cut back on oil consumption nationally, did rock OPEC, and bring down prices eventually. That message eliminated the embargo as a primary means to achieve political ends. The social media organization behind those fighting the shorts could do something similar, or it could be more like the failed boycotts.

[vtsnowedin]

When they stopped trading in those casino stocks they bailed out the hedge funds at the expense of the Redit and Robinhood retail speculators. If it wasn't rigged before it is now.
How a hedge fund can short more shares of a stock then actually exist is a problem that needs immediate correction. And of course the hedge funds could stop shorting stocks altogether and when the last short is covered the stock price would immediately fall back to what it is really worth. But of course some were shorting GME at $450 thinking it will fall back before they have to cover that short. At $193 this morning they are right but perhaps that is only because the little guys have been kept out of it which should be illegal.

[vtsnowedin]

Friday morning one of my monthly checks came in direct deposit at 12:01 AM as usual. I transferred a bit of it to my brokerage account wanting to buy another stock. The site said it takes one to three days for the transfer to clear. WTF!! anything I buy on line disappears from my account in seconds. Why are they so slow? I suspect with thousands of clients at any given time they have millions if not billions they have not yet cleared. I wonder what they do with our money during the gap.
This was real money, not a margin or a loan so I see no need for the lag.
All I lost was one days possession of the stock I wanted to buy and it actually went down a bit that day so no real harm but I wonder day in and day out how much they are skimming off the clients with that lag.

[evilgenius]

TD Ameritrade credits my account a few minutes after I make a deposit from my bank account. I think I always see something that tells me it could take several days. I always interpret that to be a reminder of how things used to be.

It also keeps me on my toes. One day, it may be that the delay comes back. I have to operate as if I could be surprised by that at any time.

I guess I should be more patient with my buying routine and try to keep some reserve, specifically for what look like one-off dips. You know, mid-week, before payday, dips that present good places to shore my positions.

Mostly, I transfer money into my account the day I get paid, and spend it on boosting my positions the same day. I might buy a new stock, but I am starting to become diversified enough that something is always down on that day.

I am worried that this war on shorting could damage me. I don't mean that I don't want my stocks to go up. I just don't want them to go exponential when doing so could jeopardize the existence of the company.

What are the vigilantes going to do when all the money they can put in will no longer move the needle? It takes a story other than nostalgia to sustain some share prices. You know, because we like to think those nostalgic points will keep us making decisions in unison. But that is rarely the way it works out. Somebody is always faster than me.

I try to compensate for that by adjusting my investment time horizons. I don't want to treat the whole AI, EV, PV revolution like a biotech stock spike, up one day and down the next. I resent that a group action like this could undermine that adjustment strategy. It makes me think whether there is another one that would work so well during a time like this? Could it possibly change things that much?

It could give me pause on paydays when share prices are running up so much. I've been stung before playing catch up. It makes one wonder if this doesn't presage some uncomfortable volatility? You see, I have a fear that I will be the last sucker. I don't consider my positions sucker plays. The world should be switching to them out of necessity. It's just that I could wind up buying at prices those shares won't see again for some time. It makes me uneasy.

[vtsnowedin]

I don't do anything resembling day trading so would not be looking for short term fluctuations. Any stock I buy I plan on holding for years unless it totally tanks. So I have been thinking about what to buy each month with my speculation money and having my mind made up was just irritated I could not buy it the same business day I transferred this months money into the account.
But I do wonder how much income they manage to squeeze out of money customers have deposited while they drag their feet (fingers more precisely) on clearing it.
They have computers trading to take advantage of milliseconds delay between order and delivery. Imagine what they can do with three days.

[evilgenius]

Yes, imagine. And not just regarding financial services. People don't get paid daily. You gotta wonder how far things will go, in terms of revolution, in the Twenty First Century?

If getting paid goes away entirely, how will they decide who gets what? Will they use our own characterizations of ourselves, on social media and elsewhere, to pigeonhole us? We don't judge people guilty of crimes simply because they are predisposed in some way by life. They have to commit a crime before we convict them of one. How will we judge distributions, if we find we have to differentiate in some way, when we don't have the market for work to help us?

[vtsnowedin]

As long as they need people to show up and put in the hours to get needed work done they will have to pay us in a way that lets us pay our bills. I spent almost all of my working life watching other people work but they needed watching and someone to keep track of how much they had accomplished. I suppose one day robots will be able to do all useful work and we mere mortals will have to live off the stock dividends from the robot company. Will we endow each child at birth with a stock portfolio that will support them through life?

[vtsnowedin]

Today the ongoing short squeeze circus has Robinhood restricting GME investors to only being able to buy one share a day but allowing them to sell out and settle their position. My question is if new investors can only buy one share just who is getting to buy the shares of those selling out?
A Google search shows answers for day to day normal trading but I can find nothing specific to this new situation.

[evilgenius]

One of my stocks has a huge short position, over fifty percent. It spiked recently, and has been trying to find out what that means. It's a solar stock, SPWR, that had been going up more slowly, but then ran up faster. I can't complain that anybody expects it to go down. I am also looking for cheaper opportunities to buy more shares. I like it as part of a long term outlook. I expect it to have a much larger market cap as the whole solar story unfolds, and earnings to prevent short sellers from having that much impact. Right now, the price is volatile. I'm curious how these things work out. I don't know what to expect. Will it find a new lower price? Will it shake off the shorts and run more? I don't think it will collapse, but maybe? If there were no underlying good solar story, I think it could actually go back down to $7 a share. I think the shorts can imply that. It's been trying to reach $50.

[vtsnowedin]

One of my stocks has a huge short position, over fifty percent. It spiked recently, and has been trying to find out what that means. It's a solar stock, SPWR, that had been going up more slowly, but then ran up faster. I can't complain that anybody expects it to go down. I am also looking for cheaper opportunities to buy more shares. I like it as part of a long term outlook. I expect it to have a much larger market cap as the whole solar story unfolds, and earnings to prevent short sellers from having that much impact. Right now, the price is volatile. I'm curious how these things work out. I don't know what to expect. Will it find a new lower price? Will it shake off the shorts and run more? I don't think it will collapse, but maybe? If there were no underlying good solar story, I think it could actually go back down to $7 a share. I think the shorts can imply that. It's been trying to reach $50.

Yes an interesting stock with today's games being played. It is up 684% this year so is most certainly overvalued at present with a P/E of 42.08. If you bought it a while back you could sell it for a tidy profit then buy it back after the short sellers have had their way with her. I certainly would hesitate to buy it today as a down turn is far more likely then a near term increase. Where did you find the information that it was fifty percent shorted?

[evilgenius]

TD Ameritrade summarizes the short position for me. I have to hope it is accurate.

With SPWR I am trying to build a long-term position. I want as many shares as I can get because I think it is going to the moon. To the moon compared to any share of the much smaller market it is operating in today compared to the much larger market it will operate in tomorrow. Solar is bound to capture a much larger share of the energy market, in other words. Instead of selling at the interim highs, I've been buying on the dips that come afterwards. I figure that's ok, as long as I am right about the future direction of the stock. Otherwise, I wouldn't be protected from a run that completely changed the pricing dynamic and set a much higher new normal price.

[vtsnowedin]

I've been looking for Lithium investments that don't have a China exposure. That leaves out most of the Australian production. The two biggest deposits in North America are in Nevada and Mexico. The Nevada one belongs to a Canadian firm Lithium Americas corp. (LAC) and has just issued stock to raise cash to develop that deposit. At $22 a share it might pan out or not.
The Mexico deposit belongs to Albemarle corp. which is an older chemical product supplier that also has a major interest in the largest producer in Chile which is some of the lowest production cost supplies in the world.
I'm going to place a white chip on both of those plus one on Vista outdoors (VSTO) the owner of Federal and Remington Ammunition. They are working on a Billion dollars worth of back ordered ammunition of all types.

[evilgenius]

I have a small position in Livant, LTHM, as a more pure lithium play. Besides that, I own some Panasonic. They make Tesla's batteries. That relationship is supposed to end at some point, but Panasonic is the company that keeps making the incremental improvements. Even if they do separate from Tesla, they will have something to offer to someone else. A reason why not would be if sold state lithium batteries come about. That would replace everything Panasonic does with something else. For now, in case that happens, I have a very small position in QS. I said earlier that I bought them when they had a pullback. I'm going to have to see what happens with things, trying to build other positions too, before I add more shares.

To deal with charging infrastructure, I am going with ABB. They do many things. I like their diversity because some of the other things they do also fall under my future based investment scheme.

[evilgenius]

Sorry, I meant solid state batteries. If solid state batteries come about, maybe Panasonic will get left behind?

I've read in several places that the deck is actually stacked in favor of current lithium battery technology. Factories are built, apparently, in a certain way. It would cost a lot to switch to something else. At the very least, there would be a development/investment delay that came with a switchover to solid state. Panasonic might benefit from that. They look like the type of company that would take the ball and run with it, if that happened. I guess they would do it, even if it meant operating under a license rather than owning the process.

Also, I read recently that they sell solar panels, the household variety. I like that sort of diversity. It is another way for me to diversify my investment approach into renewables.

The only trouble with them is that they are an ADR. That means buying them still comes with fees. I can't just add to my positions one or two shares at a time, or I have to adjust the math for those few share's added cost of fees to realize a profit. I need to save up a bit, so that I can spread the cost of the fees over many shares. Then, I have to hope that the price hasn't run up in the meanwhile. Oh, well, such are the problems of small time investors.