I am going to short the whole country of South Africa
I assure you, this ISN'T going to get political. Because by all accounts South Africa is screwed. My planned position is bottom paragraph.
Under the current ANC government there has been a general degeneration of all aspects of South Africa. Due to systemic nepotism, there are math teachers that don't know what square roots are, army officers that can't read, and cops that have never fired a gun. The practice of fictitious employees that take checks but don't work there is widespread enough that the government has drove itself into insolvency already. Estimates are that some 80% of government funds are misused in some way, ranging from government subsidies given to businesses owned by government officials to simply going missing from accounts. The ANC solved this, against advise of wiser people, with quantitative easing. Which is a fancy term for printing money, and since they could never possibly reverse that printer they're inflating the South African Rand which is why they've had two bouts of inflation near 9% twice in the past 20 years.
That is all besides how the largely defunct government doesn't prevent anything on the ground. Roaming bands of pirates (many affiliates of the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighter party) will poison guard dogs and torture and murder residents often for as little as car keys and groceries. Many communities are functionally independent and take the law in their own hands, and in many areas utilities are defunct (untreated sewage goes in the river, untreated tap water comes out and it smells as disgusting as it sounds). South Africans are more likely to have their asylum applications accepted than any other nation as there are so many tales of rape and murder and threats of ethnic cleansing. This equates to the most educated citizens leaving SA and most SA based businesses diversifying out of the country as literacy rates have been falling. These disillusioned departures are not new, as they include the most famous Afrikaner in history Elon Musk who is now a naturalized American.
Edit: The Economic Freedom Fighter's usual acronym isn't used because it's also the ticker for a penny stock.
I first thought about shorting South Africa over a year ago when I was researching the country (I'm a historian, I read much on the country for fun). I found the only index tracking SA (EZA) wasn't an accurate representation of SA economy and buying puts on it was useless. It tracked only the largest cap firms, which are the aforementioned companies diversifying out of SA (mostly to other parts of Africa). Which is why it's a volatile ETF that overall trades sideways. Buying puts on it wouldn't really capitalize on SA going full Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe having experienced the general breakup of modern institutions and hyperinflation due to similar problems.
My new broker, IBKR, allows negative currency positions as long you post 10% as collateral. Now my native currency are US dollars, where inflation in 2020 was 1.4% while the South African Rand's inflation was 4.12% in 2020. That equals a 26.8% return on investment per year from that simple short position. But I'm expecting US Dollar inflation to stay between 1-2% a year while the Rand (ticker ZAR) stays north of 4% with inflation spikes inevitable over the next decade. This position also reduces my market beta, much needed for me as I've got hugely leveraged positions on American ETFs. This isn't a short term swing trade, I'm waiting for SA to implode.
I assure you, this ISN'T going to get political. Because by all accounts South Africa is screwed. My planned position is bottom paragraph.
Under the current ANC government there has been a general degeneration of all aspects of South Africa. Due to systemic nepotism, there are math teachers that don't know what square roots are, army officers that can't read, and cops that have never fired a gun. The practice of fictitious employees that take checks but don't work there is widespread enough that the government has drove itself into insolvency already. Estimates are that some 80% of government funds are misused in some way, ranging from government subsidies given to businesses owned by government officials to simply going missing from accounts. The ANC solved this, against advise of wiser people, with quantitative easing. Which is a fancy term for printing money, and since they could never possibly reverse that printer they're inflating the South African Rand which is why they've had two bouts of inflation near 9% twice in the past 20 years.
That is all besides how the largely defunct government doesn't prevent anything on the ground. Roaming bands of pirates (many affiliates of the Marxist Economic Freedom Fighter party) will poison guard dogs and torture and murder residents often for as little as car keys and groceries. Many communities are functionally independent and take the law in their own hands, and in many areas utilities are defunct (untreated sewage goes in the river, untreated tap water comes out and it smells as disgusting as it sounds). South Africans are more likely to have their asylum applications accepted than any other nation as there are so many tales of rape and murder and threats of ethnic cleansing. This equates to the most educated citizens leaving SA and most SA based businesses diversifying out of the country as literacy rates have been falling. These disillusioned departures are not new, as they include the most famous Afrikaner in history Elon Musk who is now a naturalized American.
Edit: The Economic Freedom Fighter's usual acronym isn't used because it's also the ticker for a penny stock.
I first thought about shorting South Africa over a year ago when I was researching the country (I'm a historian, I read much on the country for fun). I found the only index tracking SA (EZA) wasn't an accurate representation of SA economy and buying puts on it was useless. It tracked only the largest cap firms, which are the aforementioned companies diversifying out of SA (mostly to other parts of Africa). Which is why it's a volatile ETF that overall trades sideways. Buying puts on it wouldn't really capitalize on SA going full Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe having experienced the general breakup of modern institutions and hyperinflation due to similar problems.
My new broker, IBKR, allows negative currency positions as long you post 10% as collateral. Now my native currency are US dollars, where inflation in 2020 was 1.4% while the South African Rand's inflation was 4.12% in 2020. That equals a 26.8% return on investment per year from that simple short position. But I'm expecting US Dollar inflation to stay between 1-2% a year while the Rand (ticker ZAR) stays north of 4% with inflation spikes inevitable over the next decade. This position also reduces my market beta, much needed for me as I've got hugely leveraged positions on American ETFs. This isn't a short term swing trade, I'm waiting for SA to implode.
GME bank consultation
Short story-time for amusement reasons only:
some days ago, I went to my bank (Austria). I am the owner of quite a number of GME shares and my broker app is actually just the bank-intern bond trading app, where I need to pay transactional feed everytime I buy (what is sell?) GME shares. I informed myself about the reasoning of those transactional fees beforehand and found out that by paying them, I have the right of consultation by my bank about the shares they‘re trading/I‘m buying.
So, I went to the main national building of my bank, they were really friendly at the beginning, enthustiatically, I mentioned GME to them and that I wish for professional consultation about the financial details involved with that stock (I am not a financial guy, actually, I don‘t exactly know what‘s going on, it‘s all pretty crazy to me).
Suddenly, their posture and mimick changed pretty suddenly. I was told, they are not allowed to consult about GME. To my question, why this was the case, they told me, because GME is „too irrelevant for the big stock market“. They are „aware of the past short squeeze, but one should no longer focus on GME“. They acted as if GME was some „childish financial playground“ that should be forgotten about. When I confronted them with the huge recent naked short attacks and if they could explain to me possible effects of them if they were not covered, they just repeated themselves how „GME is not relevant, please focus on stocks like Apple or Amazon to be safe“.
I left the bank, buying more GME shares.
Short story-time for amusement reasons only:
some days ago, I went to my bank (Austria). I am the owner of quite a number of GME shares and my broker app is actually just the bank-intern bond trading app, where I need to pay transactional feed everytime I buy (what is sell?) GME shares. I informed myself about the reasoning of those transactional fees beforehand and found out that by paying them, I have the right of consultation by my bank about the shares they‘re trading/I‘m buying.
So, I went to the main national building of my bank, they were really friendly at the beginning, enthustiatically, I mentioned GME to them and that I wish for professional consultation about the financial details involved with that stock (I am not a financial guy, actually, I don‘t exactly know what‘s going on, it‘s all pretty crazy to me).
Suddenly, their posture and mimick changed pretty suddenly. I was told, they are not allowed to consult about GME. To my question, why this was the case, they told me, because GME is „too irrelevant for the big stock market“. They are „aware of the past short squeeze, but one should no longer focus on GME“. They acted as if GME was some „childish financial playground“ that should be forgotten about. When I confronted them with the huge recent naked short attacks and if they could explain to me possible effects of them if they were not covered, they just repeated themselves how „GME is not relevant, please focus on stocks like Apple or Amazon to be safe“.
I left the bank, buying more GME shares.
GME short squeeze
Lets dumb this down for you apes:
- Let's say 5 banana's currently cost 10 dollar
- One ape on the market has 5 banana's
- Snake asks to borrow 5 banana's for a bit and instead sells the 5 banana's thinking price will go down soon (shorting). he thinks he can buy them later for less and give them back to ape, so he make's profit on the difference.
- Group of apes notice what stupid snakes are doing and decide to buy all banana's on the market until snakes have no other choice than to buy from the group of apes in order to return what they borrowed
- If group of apes stay strong then price will go 🚀🚀🚀
Lets dumb this down for you apes:
- Let's say 5 banana's currently cost 10 dollar
- One ape on the market has 5 banana's
- Snake asks to borrow 5 banana's for a bit and instead sells the 5 banana's thinking price will go down soon (shorting). he thinks he can buy them later for less and give them back to ape, so he make's profit on the difference.
- Group of apes notice what stupid snakes are doing and decide to buy all banana's on the market until snakes have no other choice than to buy from the group of apes in order to return what they borrowed
- If group of apes stay strong then price will go 🚀🚀🚀
My idiot boyfriend spent my college fund on dog coins how do I get it back???
He talked me into spending the $8500 I have on dog coins because something was supposed to happen yesterday which would have given us more money?? but it didn't actually happen or got canceled or something I don't really know or understand how it works but I went to the dog coin site to withdraw my money and there is only about $6700 of it there, where is the rest of it? I tried looking at the faq but don't really get it
He talked me into spending the $8500 I have on dog coins because something was supposed to happen yesterday which would have given us more money?? but it didn't actually happen or got canceled or something I don't really know or understand how it works but I went to the dog coin site to withdraw my money and there is only about $6700 of it there, where is the rest of it? I tried looking at the faq but don't really get it
I just smashed my TV because of the SPY
I just smashed my TV in front of 30 guests at my house because of the SPY. My wife just took our crying kids and said they’re all spending the week at a hotel. This sub has ruined my life and my party. I can’t handle this anymore. Goodbye Powell. I am no longer a fan.
I just smashed my TV in front of 30 guests at my house because of the SPY. My wife just took our crying kids and said they’re all spending the week at a hotel. This sub has ruined my life and my party. I can’t handle this anymore. Goodbye Powell. I am no longer a fan.
I used to be a real ad