Anyone investing heavily this year??

How much money did you lose/gain this past week?


  • Total voters
    30
  • Poll closed .
Your boy Richard Fain sold all his stock, I think he makes more money from moomoo affliates than trading.
I think he said he bought 20k shares of RKLB at $27/$28. So if he sold that and others in his trading account. He lost quite a bit.
 


In today's Five Question Friday (FQF) video, we tackle the following questions:

1. Do Roth conversions in the top tax bracket ever make sense?
2. Does the wash sales rule apply to purchases in Roth IRA?
3. Does rebalancing change once you retire?
4. How should taxes influence my investing decisions?
5. How to think about risk tolerance?
Bonus: No Fee Index Funds

0:00 - Intro
1:31 - Do Roth conversions in the top tax bracket ever make sense?
5:46 - Does the wash sales rule apply to purchases in Roth IRA?
7:55 - Does rebalancing change once you retire?
14:40 - How should taxes influence my investing decisions?
17:47 - How to think about risk tolerance?
21:55 - Bonus: No Fee Index Funds
 


The goal of cost-effective portfolio hedging is that you have more wealth thanks to the hedging/insurance process compared to not using any hedges. We discuss what is cost-effective portfolio hedging, guided by Mark Spitznagel's book Safe Haven, how various hedging portfolio strategies might fit your personal requirements because at the end, hedging depends first and foremost on your context.

0:00 Portfolio Hedging
1:34 Cost Effective Hedging
7:75 How To Hedge
9:17 Hedging Principles
12:53 Cash
18:10 Bonds
23:28 Diversification
24:05 All-Weather
30:00 Going Short
33:30 Out of the Money Options
43:02 Great Businesses
47:15 Gold
 




In this week's episode we have the founder of PensionCraft, Ramin Nakisa, who also was a strategist for 12 years at a Swiss investment bank.In this episode we discuss:
  • 2 Investments To build and your wealth and get rich
  • Lessons from 15 Years in Investment Banking
  • How Investment Banks Make Money
  • The Psychology of Investing
  • Steps to make your first investment today
  • ETFs vs Index Funds
  • Should You Invest In Global Index Funds and much more


TIMESTAMPS
0:00 - Preview
1:11 - Intro
1:47 - Meet Investing Expert & PensionCraft Founder Ramin Nakisa
5:41 - Working in a Swiss investment bank
8:40 - Yesim Ad
10:12 - How do investment banks make their money?
15:23 - How the investment banking industry impacts you
17:23 - Sophisticated investors don’t have complex investment portfolios
18:20 - 15 years of lessons in investment banking
21:01 - Tide Ad
24:21 - Even if you don’t borrow, interest rates affects you!
25:50 - What really is investing?
27:54 - What is risk free premium?
31:06 - What is an equity?
32:35 - How is a bond different to an equity?
36:54 - Why is it important to invest ?
37:22 - This is the first step to investing
42:34 - When is the right time to sell your investments?
45:52 - The psychology of investing
50:42 - How to overcome the fear of the stock market crashing
56:21 - You need to work out your risk capacity & risk appetite
58:30 - How to be a more disciplined investor
1:01:17 - How to overcome the fear of investing?
1:02:32 - Steps to make your first investment today?
1:08:00 - Make your child a Pension Millionaire
1:09:27 - The 4% rule
1:11:10 - You only need 3 investments!
1:12:57 - Pitfalls for newer investors to avoid!
1:14:41 - How to figure out what global fund to go for?
1:20:03 - Should you still invest in global index funds?
1:24:02 - Why is it so hard to beat the stock market?
1:30:44 - The benefits of investing in a global index fund
1:34:22 - Risks to investing?
1:35:27 - Key lessons from investing and working an investment banking
1:37:12 - Why I invested in crypto
1:40:36 - How Pension craft helps you
1:43:10 - Final words
 


Legendary investor Chris Bloomstran from Semper Augustus, boasting an impressive 11.4% compounded annual growth rate since 1999, will join Stig on today's show to explain how to value Berkshire Hathaway.

What you'll learn here:
00:00:00 - Intro
00:01:15 - The importance of being trusted for Warren Buffett and Chris Bloomstran
00:11:28 - How to take a deep dive into Berkshire Hathaway’s culture and business model
00:17:51 - Why you may want to own a 10-year treasury over the S&P 500 over the next decade
00:19:24 - How to estimate whether you’re in a secular peak
00:26:51 - What the intrinsic value of Berkshire Hathaway is, and what type of return you can get moving forward
00:43:30 - How active Berkshire should be on the boards of portfolio companies
 

Hackers Manipulate Markets in $700 Million Illicit Trading Spree
  • Hackers Manipulate Markets in $700 Million Illicit Trading Spree
  • Hackers Manipulate Markets in $700 Million Illicit Trading Spree
  • Hackers Manipulate Markets in $700 Million Illicit Trading Spree
  • Hackers Manipulate Markets in $700 Million Illicit Trading Spree
  • Hackers Manipulate Markets in $700 Million Illicit Trading Spree
  • Hackers Manipulate Markets in $700 Million Illicit Trading Spree


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Hackers Manipulate Markets in $700 Million Illicit Trading Spree​




(Bloomberg) — Criminals are hijacking online brokerage accounts in Japan and using them to drive up penny stocks around the world. The wave of fraudulent trading has reached ¥100 billion ($710 million) since it started in February and shows no signs of cresting.

The scams typically use the hacked accounts to buy thinly traded stocks both domestically and overseas, allowing anyone who has built up a position earlier to cash out at inflated values. In response, some Japanese securities firms have stopped processing buy orders for certain Chinese, US and Japanese stocks.


Eight of the country’s biggest brokers including Rakuten Securities Inc. and SBI Securities Co. have reported unauthorized trading on their platforms. The breaches have exposed Japan as a potential weak point in efforts to safeguard global markets from hackers.They also threaten to undermine the Japanese government’s push to get more people to invest for their retirement, particularly since some victims say they are baffled as to how their accounts were broken into and the securities companies have so far largely refrained from covering the losses.

A 41-year-old part-time worker, who did not want to be named because of privacy concerns, said her Rakuten Securities account was hacked and used to buy Chinese stocks in a transaction that cost her ¥639,777, or about 12% of her holdings. When she noticed, she contacted Rakuten, which told her to file a police report. However, the police in Aichi prefecture wouldn’t accept a criminal complaint because they said she wasn’t the victim — Rakuten Securities was. She said that Rakuten then told her that it wasn’t at fault and therefore could not help her.


“The police told me that in most fraud cases, the victims often end up having to just quietly accept the loss,” she said. “Basically, there’s not much that can be done.”

In a response to questions from Bloomberg News on fraudulent transactions and the woman’s case, a Rakuten spokesperson said “we will continue to examine each case individually and respond in good faith.” SBI said it was listening to individual circumstances and responding promptly. SMBC Nikko Securities Inc. said it would review the circumstances of each affected customer and consider individual responses.

Monex Group Inc. also said it would consider each case individually. Matsui Securities Co. said it will handle compensation in accordance with industry guidelines and Nomura Securities Co. said it would respond flexibly based on the individual circumstances of affected customers. Daiwa Securities Group Inc. said they are reviewing the matter of compensation related to unauthorized transactions. Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group Inc. said it will listen to the circumstances of each case and respond promptly and sincerely. The police in Aichi did not respond to multiple requests for comment. One investor who asked not to be named to protect his privacy said he lost around 50 million yen when his account was hacked and used to buy both Japanese and Chinese individual stocks.
The Tokyo resident in his mid-50s said an account notification suddenly popped up on his iPhone on the morning of April 16. Alarmed, he immediately called his brokerage and was told they could not freeze the account. Even though he had only ever purchased index funds that tracked the S&P 500 index and had never bought individual shares, his account was used to buy stocks on margin. Faced with plummeting prices, he chose to sell the securities on the 17th and 18th to avoid further losses. Since the stocks were bought with leverage, the brokerage said it would liquidate his holdings in the S&P to cover their losses.


One of the stocks the investor said was purchased using his account was DesignOne Japan Inc. On April 16, 5.8 million shares of the stock traded hands compared with a daily average of 194,000 shares over the last six months. Bloomberg was unable to independently confirm details of the transactions in the investor's account.

Japan’s government has told brokerages to engage in “good faith” discussions with clients about compensation for losses, Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato said on April 22.

The Japan Securities Dealers Association, the umbrella group for the country’s securities firms, is also pushing its members to upgrade their systems to make multi-factor authentication mandatory. The group’s chairman, Toshio Morita, criticized the failure to provide compensation for victims, while acknowledging that it was up to each firm to set their own policy.

“It’s not acceptable to issue a blanket denial of compensation,” Morita said at a press conference on April 16. “Firms must consider each customer’s circumstances and respond appropriately.”


Cases of fraudulent trading jumped to 736 in the first half of April from 33 in February, according to Japan’s Financial Services Agency, without saying how much the victims had lost. This puts the government’s strategy of getting more people to invest at risk. An expansion of a tax exemption program for small investments spurred a 20% rise in Nippon Individual Savings Accounts as of the end of 2024 versus the previous year, according to the FSA. That momentum has slowed down and the government might not reach its target of having 34 million users in five years, according to Yusuke Maeyama, a researcher at NLI Research Institute.

“Among people already using the system, including myself, there’s a sense that the financial firms need to do their jobs properly,” Maeyama said. “For people who haven’t been involved in investing, this can be intimidating. When issues like this come up, it just reinforces their fears.”

The criminals behind the scams are likely using techniques called adversary-in-the-middle and infostealers to gain access to the accounts, according to Nobuhiro Tsuji, a cybersecurity expert at SB Technology. The first method leverages both fake and legitimate websites to steal cookies, the small text files stored in web browsers that hold session data.


The attack typically begins by luring the user to a fake site via a phishing email or malicious ad. The fake site then redirects the user to the legitimate site, where their login credentials are intercepted. In some cases, the attackers create extremely elaborate interfaces — for example, one side of the browser shows the real site while the other displays the fake one — to deceive users.

In contrast, infostealers are a type of malware specifically designed to steal sensitive information such as IDs and passwords. Hidden in emails, malicious ads, or fraudulent websites, these programs can infect a user’s device and silently exfiltrate all stored personal data — often without the user ever realizing they’ve been compromised. There have been at least 105,000 cases of leaked credentials in Japan, according to a study done by Macnica Security Research Center.

One weakness in Japan is the propensity for people to use browsers rather than mobile apps, which have better protection, according to Yutaka Sejiyama, the deputy director of Macnica. There has not been a similar surge in cases overseas.


Many of the victims have described their losses online, including the woman whose Rakuten account was hacked, who wrote a series of posts detailing the hacking of her account. She joined a group that shared information about their cases and bandied around the idea of jointly hiring a lawyer, but faced with the amount of time and effort it would require, she eventually left.Instead, she’s considering closing her account with Rakuten but is unsure of which of its competitors to turn to. Face-to-face brokerages charge higher fees and she’s worried they would pressure her to buy stocks she doesn’t want. Either way, she feels trapped.

“We are so powerless,” she said. “It’s no use.”

(Corrects story originally published on April 24 in 5th, 6th, 7th, 23rd and 25th paragraphs to remove name of individual whose Rakuten brokerage account was hacked.)

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
 
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/04/28/amazon-launches-first-kuiper-satellites-in-bid-to-take-on-starlink.html?__source=iosappshare|com.apple.UIKit.activity.CopyToPasteboard
Tech

Amazon launches first Kuiper internet satellites in bid to take on Elon Musk’s Starlink​

Published Mon, Apr 28 20257:02 PM EDTUpdated 15 Min Ago
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Annie Palmer@in/annierpalmer/@annierpalmer
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Key Points
  • After the first launch was postponed due to weather, Amazon’s Kuiper satellites are off to space.
  • Project Kuiper is Amazon’s plan for a constellation of thousands of internet-beaming satellites.
  • Once up and running, Kuiper will compete directly with SpaceX’s Starlink.

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket is on the launch pad carrying Amazon’s Project Kuiper internet network satellites, which are expected to eventually rival Elon Musk’s Starlink system, at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S., April 9, 2025.
Steve Nesius | Reuters
Amazon on Monday launched the first batch of its Kuiper internet satellites into space after an earlier attempt was scrubbed due to inclement weather.

A United Launch Alliance rocket carrying 27 Kuiper satellites lifted off from a launchpad at the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida shortly after 7 p.m. eastern, according to a livestream.


“We had a nice smooth countdown, beautiful weather, beautiful liftoff, and Atlas V is on its way to orbit to take those 27 Kuiper satellites, put them on their way and really start this new era in internet connectivity,” Caleb Weiss, a systems engineer at ULA, said on the livestream following the launch.

The satellites are expected to separate from the rocket roughly 280 miles above Earth’s surface, at which point Amazon will look to confirm the satellites can independently maneuver and communicate with its employees on the ground.

Six years ago Amazon unveiled its plans to build a constellation of internet-beaming satellites in low Earth orbit, called Project Kuiper. The service will compete directly with Elon Musk’s Starlink, which currently dominates the market and has 8,000 satellites in orbit.

The first Kuiper mission kicks off what will need to become a steady cadence of launches in order for Amazon to meet a deadline set by the Federal Communications Commission. The agency expects the company to have half of its total constellation, or 1,618 satellites, up in the air by July 2026.

Amazon has booked more than 80 launches to deploy dozens of satellites at a time. In addition to ULA, its launch partners include Musk’s SpaceX (parent company of Starlink), European company Arianespace and Jeff Bezos’ space exploration startup Blue Origin.


Amazon is spending as much as $10 billion to build the Kuiper network. It hopes to begin commercial service for consumers, enterprises and government later this year.

In his shareholder letter earlier this month, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Kuiper will require upfront investment at first, but eventually the company expects it to be “a meaningful operating income and ROIC business for us.” ROIC stands for return on invested capital.

Investors will be listening for any commentary around further capex spend on Kuiper when Amazon reports first-quarter earnings after the bell on Thursday.

WATCH: Amazon launches Project Kuiper prototypes
Amazon launches Project Kuiper prototypes to low orbit as tech giant enters satellite internet race
 
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