Shorting is totally legit. You can set it up on your trading account. But you are responsible for paying if the market moves against you. In this case, it appears that the big guys thought they couldn’t lose. So they used their friends to close the system and force folks to sell their shares. Illegal, unethical and Un-American. I hope this stops and never happens again.
Talk about losing faith in the financial markets. This stuff continues and many people will not invest in stocks at all.
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Here are some relatively recent Medicare threads (god I will have to wade this morass because Mr. would not!)
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Short sellers have been taking a beating ever since March when they’ve been betting against the market. The crappy part of this is how many of us might have investments in any of these funds that bought into that crap as part of our 401ks, IRA’s etc. But like I told my kids earlier, stay away from all of that crap. The last thing you want with a short sell is something to go up up up and your inability to cover and you lose your shirt because you can’t cover it.
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just another good reason for passive Index funds.
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Most mutual funds and ETFs do not engage in short selling, I don’t think. So the impact to your 401k will be marginal. They might be lending out shares though.
I’m half convinced short-selling short not be legal. You should not be able to gamble on a negative outcome of an investment. I understand it’s value in hedging, but at the very least naked shorts should not be allowed. It just increases volatility, and it’s usually the small unsophisticated investor who gets screwed in the end.
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Agree in one sense. But short selling can be covered. You can buy and sell at the sane time. These huge funds didn’t do that. It’s expensive and they got blinded by their own “expertise”
There is some value in being able to short stocks. Mainly when companies like banks have “artificially” done things and it’s well known the stock value isn’t real.
Sadly, most retail folks don’t use these sophisticated tools. If they did, the market would look very different. And I think this has made many wake up.
To the points above regarding 401ks, if you have your assets in many types of funds there is a very good chance sophisticating tools are being used.
I hold mainly stocks, few funds and some bonds, etc. Most are not small caps/small companies si they are less likely to have this najor manipulation. But it has happened before. I just don’t recall an implicit bias byvthe finc’l markets in the form of not allowing selling/buying by all. Or maybe it happened and no one reported it.
I still give to charity but I also still itemize. I do think that Federal taxes should probably take into account local costs in a broad way, as the FHA mortgage caps do. It always stuns me to think that someone making $150K in Alabama which is the equivalent of $450K in NYC would have gotten Covid relief checks.
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40 more work days. It’s getting real. Kind of scary but mostly looking forward to it.
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1214mom, enjoy the countdown!
July will be 2 years retired for me. Im so much less stressed, healthier and happy.
Wishing you the same
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I still have some months till October 2021. Trying to figure out MC for DH for March application/he turns 65 in June.
The count down gets one excited!
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Is there a website which compares health plan costs/coverage by state? I’m considering moving but not sure where.
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If you mean ACA plans for those younger than the age to get socialized Medicare, you can look at the ACA exchange web sites to see what pricing looks like for various available plans in each area (note that availability may vary by region within a state).
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I’m aware of the ACA site but its pretty arduous to look at 50 states and try to develop any sort of apples to apples comparison between costs and coverage. I had hoped there was some site out there that had already done the work…
It turns out, IDK if it is because my BD is behind my H’s, but when we sign up for MC for H when he turns 65, my Blue Cross Blue Shield of AL will be primary for him and MC secondary. When I checked with BCBS the person verified with another about this, so pretty sure I can go by this info. Who knows if there are also start regulations about this. It seems CA has some state laws that have a lot of ‘meat’ with health care and health insurance.
So I can sign him up for the minimum with MC in June and then we both will sign up for the full stuff with the MC direction we want so Oct 1 we are both then on MC and whatever choices we make as I retire and turn 65 at that time.
I have signed up for a free seminar from a non-profit organization that is free to join. They provide these seminars on MC and SS twice a month in our mid-sized city. I imagine it is put on by some of these local certified financial people, but IMHO it is worth my time to look into it. Called AFEA, American Financial Education Alliance.
I hope this info doesn’t ‘violate’ CC policy in some way. I had a post that was ‘hidden by community flag’ and I have no idea why.
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Another factor to consider might be long term care expenses (which may or may not be linked to general health care trends… not sure).
Here is an example link, but you do have to check location by location - Cost of Long Term Care by State | Cost of Care Report | Genworth
Example - median monthly costs for 3 of the items listed at above site
Home Health Aid / Assisted Living / Nursing Home private
NATIONAL: $4600 / $4300 / $8800
Boston: $5700 / $6100 / $14,500
Cape Cod: $5100 / $6300 / $14,200
Boulder CO: $5700 / $5100 / $10,500
Des Moines, IA: $5100 / $5000 / $7600
Nashville TN: $4200 / $3700 / $7900
Fort Lauderdale, FL: $3800 / $3500 / $10,400
San Diego, CA: $5700 / $4500 / $14,400
Obviously this kind of thing is just a starting point. But perhaps it would cause retirees to rule out a location if looking to stay there long term.
There might be a way to find someone (insurance healthcare agent) who specializes in this type of thing. I’ve never looked for it, but I’d guess it must exist.
As far as ACA, I think many people would need a stronger/better plan based on their health and other factors. So many things to consider.
We’ve had private health insurance in the Boston area ( many plans) and it has been shockingly expensive with high deductibles. That might be due to the excellent medical care available nearby. I’d guess that high cost areas are also high cost for healthcare. We also have had two primary care doctors go to concierge service so that’s something that might come into play as well.
We don’t plan to buy long term care policies. I think we missed the point (if there ever was one) when they were inexpensive. At this point, we’ll pay as we go.
Healthcare is a HUGE money sink in retirement, IMO. If you stay healthy you’ll likely hold on to a lot more cash that if you have any chronic issue. Might be worth buying more exercise equipment.
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Thanks, that is definitely a start!
I have gotten to really like my state and I do think we will stay here in retirement - taking our time to get our home ready (we are in a market where our home price will favorably improve with time) and have more finality on this next move. Some people move a lot - we did early in marriage, but have built and been in this home since 1992.
We have been going year by year with the package/discounts with DirecTV (now with ATT) and we are about at our breaking point without the discounts we have had. Our promotion ends April 1, and at present no current promotion to continue. We will then do like many - stream stuff, get free stuff, rent a Red Box movie every once in a while, listen to SEC football on the radio or go to a sports bar to watch, etc. We have had DirecTV since the mid-90’s. I guess they price themselves and figure people are going to continue???
Look at how much our lives have changed with Covid-19.
As we age and have time to evaluate where our money is going, our priorities also change. We certainly can have better use of our time w/o the TV hours…
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We have considered ditching Comcast TV cable … but there are news programs and other things we’d miss. Still we might give it a try, then try to get discount again down the road if we change our mind.