Posts by Jack Alvarez25

Kimberly Barrett3 said:I just hope they don't tear down some historic landmark like the Golden Gate Bridge or something similar, only to patch it back together with cheap concrete like a bunch of amateurs who have no eye for design. Honestly, forget those tacky mosaics.☕

I mean, honestly, that bridge just kind of collapsed on its own accord, mostly because the construction crews clearly had no clue what they were doing when it came to the actual terrain, the materials, or even the local climate conditions you absolutely need to account for when building something like that. If you don't know the land, I guess you should probably just go ask the locals who have lived there forever, right? Though, I suppose I should give them some credit for how long it actually held up. It probably would have lasted a few more years too, if it weren't for those HVO guys stepping in to clear out the danger and prevent the whole thing from coming down and causing a total disaster.

Charles Lopez3 said:They might not be the smartest people alive,
but they've somehow managed to get their hands on all the capital and now they're just out there calling all the shots. 😁

I mean, when you think about it, the people who have actually managed to build up some real capital usually end up handing that money over to someone else to trade on the market for them. That’s really what I’m talking about—those specific individuals. And since there is just so much money moving around the market these days, I guess it isn't exactly a struggle for them to pay someone who actually has the brains and the intuition to handle it properly.

If I actually managed to become some kind of top-tier meteorologist, I guess you have to wonder if they wouldn't eventually just pull me aside from some big investment fund or something to forecast the weather down in Florida while those orange groves are growing, right? It seems like that would be one of those jobs where the stakes are actually pretty high, I suppose, since everything depends on whether the frost hits or not.

I mean, if you were actually a top-tier agronomist—one of those experts they fly out to oversee massive operations—don't you think some investment fund would eventually reach out and ask you to step in? I guess they’d want you to run a full crop yield assessment for their orange groves based on those recent forecasts, right? It seems like that would be pretty much standard procedure if they wanted to make sure their projections weren't totally off base.

I mean, if you were actually some kind of top-tier analyst, wouldn't they be beating down your door to have you run projections on orange prices based on the harvest yields? I guess it's just one of those things where people assume that if you're good at numbers, you should be able to predict every little thing, like how much fruit is going to be hitting the shelves in Florida next season. Maybe they would, or maybe they wouldn't, because honestly, even with all the data in the world, nature can be pretty unpredictable, don't you think?

I mean, I don't know, maybe it’s just because people like that are already on the payroll for those hedge funds, I guess.

Just please, don't even get me started on asking what oranges have to do with the market, because I honestly don't have the energy to sit here and try to dig through the data to figure out exactly how many billions upon billions of dollars that specific sector is actually worth.

Gary Wilson said:I wouldn't base my actual stance on Hollywood fantasies. In a movie, anything goes.

What we’re really looking at here is the age-old, fundamental question: Are markets efficient?
Let me lay out a few premises:
An efficient market doesn't require that the market price equals the intrinsic value at every single point in time. However, pricing errors must be unbiased—meaning any deviations should be purely random.

From this, it follows that a stock's value can be overvalued or undervalued, and there should be equal chances for both, regardless of the price-to-earnings ratio.

And if that holds true, then no specific group of investors should be able to consistently identify undervalued or overvalued stocks using any particular investment strategy.😁

Of course, all of that theory goes out the window if someone is sitting on insider information.

I was only bringing up movies because they deal with attempts to manipulate the market...

Now, regarding what you said about price, I think you're absolutely spot on. I’d probably just add that market prices are ultimately driven by buyer psychology. You could have some fundamental analyst walking on his hands claiming a certain stock is worth way more, but if the market doesn't see it, well, it doesn't matter.

That's why I tend to rule out computer programs as being the "magic key" to trading. Sure, a program can beat a chess grandmaster at a game where the rules and goals are set, but I haven't seen a program that can calculate that, say, NVIDIA will hit a specific price in six months. How is a program supposed to know if some mess is going to break out in the Gulf of Mexico, or if some team of scientists is suddenly going to announce they've cracked cold fusion?

Honestly, I'd sooner bet on a psychic in Milan than on some algorithm. 😁

Gary Wilson said:Honestly, I didn't expect anyone to take this seriously. This was meant to be a joke—pretty much a commentary on the entire thread.

And let's be clear: while the computers are handling the trades, you can bet the brokers and dealers aren't just hanging out in the cafeteria gossiping about nonsense.

I guess when there’s serious money on the line, it’s hard not to get tunnel vision and miss the bigger picture😁.

There have been quite a few movies out there about this kind of thing, you know, stock market sabotage. Like one of the recent Bond movies, Casino Royale, where they tried to sabotage a new plane just to make certain stock prices plummet.
I think maybe Pehlin123 was in a movie with Travolt... I can't quite remember the details... something about sabotage in the underworld to manipulate the price of gold, I believe.

And then, of course, there's that "lucky break" situation with Eddie Murphy where they were basically sabotaging the saboteurs using orange crop reports.

I clearly remember some film critic saying he couldn't wrap his head around how they actually made their fortune, though he admitted it was just how the movie played out (back then, most of us felt like the American market was way too complex and far beyond our reach). But years later, I found out that making that kind of money through insider information—we're talking 1,000% returns or even more—is actually entirely possible.

Gary Wilson said:A simple three-step scheme:

Buy up massive amounts of oil on the commodities market through a series of small, quiet trades.

Hack the IDF website and blast out a fake headline claiming Israel launched simultaneous air, missile, and ground strikes against Iran and Iraq.

Wait for the prices to skyrocket—then sell everything.

Basically, a simple plan za zavrsiti u zatvor.

Like I’ve mentioned before, computers just execute their tasks based on the parameters they're given, they don't exactly go browsing through IDF websites or scrolling through Facebook profiles, I guess.

And even if news like that actually moves the needle, it’s usually just a flash in the pan if the info turns out to be fake. For instance, regarding oil, there was that false report about those missile launches toward Syria about 15 days ago. It only lasted maybe ten minutes, and the price jumped a couple percent at most. Once you factor in all those brokerage commissions, you might actually end up losing money, especially if you spread that trade out over a bunch of tiny transactions.

Trust me, some of the sharpest minds alive are working these markets today, and honestly, it's incredibly hard to pull a fast one on them.😢

Sophia Evans2 said:So, some algorithm is flagging price hikes for crude because it caught keywords like Syria, Israel, or bombing floating around the digital ether—probably some random feed on Twitter. If a janitor hadn't stepped away from his mop for a second, we probably wouldn't even know this was happening.

It’s wild how much we rely on automated junk that spikes prices based on news cycles that are practically ancient history.

Just a quick little correction here, I guess. You don't actually trade oil itself directly on the NYSE—not really, anyway—unless, of course, you're talking about trading the actual stocks of those big oil companies like ExxonMobil.

A computer program just does exactly what it’s told to do, I guess. It follows whatever specific parameters a person sets up for it, and most of the time, you see this happen when someone programs it to trigger a buy or a sell order once a certain price point is hit. Now, people are talking about how just three specific keywords could potentially send oil prices skyrocketing, but I don't know. Maybe. Honestly, I have my doubts. There is just way too much money moving around in that arena for me to believe none of this is being watched closely by some dedicated team of experts who are ready to jump in the second things start looking sideways.

I mean, honestly, I don't think we're looking at some massive price spike here, maybe not even a 2% jump if you really look at the numbers. Oil prices have always been such a rollercoaster, haven't they? It's just how the market works, I guess. You see things like when Obama announces an intervention in Syria, and suddenly everything shifts—prices can swing from something like $7 or $8 all the way up to $110 a barrel practically overnight. And when you consider that Syria isn't exactly a major global oil exporter, it just goes to show how much of this is driven by pure speculation and political tension rather than just actual supply and demand.

So, I was scrolling through the IDF's Twitter feed earlier, and I noticed they posted this update about how the Israeli Air Force is currently hitting airfields over in Syria to try and cut off the flow of Soviet weaponry coming into the region. It’s one of those things that really makes you stop and think about how quickly everything shifts on the ground out there, I guess.

I just realized it now. I mean, it’s kind of wild when you think about it—using a program for such critical, heavy-duty stuff when it doesn't even have the sense to know that the Soviet Union isn't even around anymore. It's just strange, I guess. 😁

Dana Chase51 said:Cynicism is just how the inferior defend themselves. Name one single project even remotely close to the Tomahawk being developed by the Chinese and Russians, and I will publicly scatter ashes in mourning. And no, a half-finished aircraft carrier certainly doesn't count.

And hey, wasn't that equipment bought from Ukraine anyway, right?

It really seems like Emily Fox2 is just obsessed with defending this whole Russo-Chinese military partnership, and she won't let it go. For years now, I haven't seen much evidence of the Chinese buying anything substantial from the Russians. They used to go after missiles for the F-15EX, but now it looks like they're just building those things themselves.

And honestly, that kind of tells you everything you need to know, I guess. It shouldn't be a shock that their cooperation is fading, or why China is making such massive strides among the world's top defense manufacturers. They are incredibly fast at copying—or "adopting," if you want to be polite about it—technology.

So, maybe we shouldn't be surprised if they start making moves in other areas sooner rather than later, too.

I suppose the main thing holding them back isn't necessarily that they won't reach that level of power in the near future, but more likely that various lobbies and complex alliances will pull the rug out from under them to prevent them from selling that same tech elsewhere. Plus, most of the third-world countries looking for budget-friendly weapons probably couldn't afford much of the high-end, advanced stuff anyway.

Emily Fox2 said:http://www.nytimes.com/World/China-Russia-Relations

China and Russia are working together extensively. They've likely hammered out quite a few military agreements.

I guess it could be true, but then again, maybe not.

http://www.reuters.com/world/us-china-military-cooperation-analysis

The Russians are denying it, though I honestly don't see why they would bother trying to keep this a secret, since it’s basically impossible to hide anything these days.
And besides that, lately, it feels like they're even broadcasting potential sales to everyone.

Brenda Baker3 said:I mean, when you look at how the Chinese and Russian defense industries are basically merging their efforts—you know, all this cooperation on high-level military programs being pushed by both the Chinese President and Putin—it really feels like it could potentially nudge China much closer to securing that number four spot globally.

I guess I hadn't really noticed just how much they've been agreeing on these points lately, but looking back, it’s pretty obvious.
It all started with those licensing deals for the Su-27 fighters, which eventually paved the way for the J-11 series,

I remember hearing about those issues they had with the braking systems for their aircraft carrier, too, because apparently the Russians weren't willing to sell them the tech, maybe because of that long-standing reputation for copying everything.

Anyway, I really wouldn't underestimate Chinese high-tech capabilities if I were you. Just because there's something they haven't mastered yet doesn't mean they won't have it figured out pretty soon.

A good example of that was that satellite disruption incident recently, where even the Pentagon seemed caught off guard by how intense it was.