Aldo notes streaming above and there is 5g as well. Their problem, to an extent, is they are so big, and everyone already has some sort of cell service that they are not growing rev's in a significant way. (T-Mobile is the lone growth stock in the field).
Look into FTF and HEQ, both closed end funds with 10% dividends that are very stable. They both sell at a discount to NAV as an added bonus.
I'm meh on 5g. Moving to 4g didn't seem like a big deal. If you are looking for stability, check out VIG or another dividend focused ETFs
Agree - VZ and T are mainly defensive or rotation plays but may have upside. TMO has gotten too expensive IMO. T is probably the cheapest and with the dividend secure isn’t a bad place to sit tight.
Musk is both a genius and a snake-oil salesman. Hard to believe that regulators have not made a peep over his well-orchestrated BTC pump. Like I said in another post, his dogecoin tweet was only a test run to see how much he could move the needle. Then did the same with #bitcoin because if BTC had dropped and Tesla lost money it would have been a major PR disaster for both Tesla and cryptocurrency. Setting aside Tesla, think about it from a cryptocurrency POV - if the stock market’s darling lost $500M in a matter of weeks on BTC it would have proven that volatility is too great for legit companies to rely on it. It’s times like this that I’m starting to think the guys wearing tin-foil hats know what they are doing.
With or without the same reliability challenges of their current models?
Though your argument sounds logical, I don't think it holds water. Of all the institutions that have decided to invest in bitcoin, the one that is most impressive to me is MassMutual. They are one of the most, if not the most, conservative investment/insurance companies in the world. They are under strict regulations under our insurance laws for capitol holdings. If they saw fit to invest in bitcoin, that's a huge green light.
Except all these insurance companies manage separate accounts. I see insurance companies chase yield all the time. Especially for separate accounts.
I don’t disagree - may main point is that MM wouldn’t put out a tweet pumping BTC.
No they didn't put out a tweet. But their investment did make headlines. Just as impactful IMO.
If Apple bought a stake in Pinterest and Tim Cook randomly tweeted #pinterest two weeks before the stake is disclosed in Apple’s SEC filing everyone would be up in arms.
But that’s the point - Musk, CEO of Tesla, put out a tweet before the Tesla announcement so by the time they actually made the announcement Tesla made $500M.
I’m convinced that blockchain and digital assets will play a huge role in our future. However, isn’t it a problem when nobody knows who actually created BTC and there are thousands of shitcoins and altcoin scams? It would not surprise me if it’s revealed that BTC and cryptocurrency was part of some elaborate fraud perpetrated by China as payback for the financial crises where Wall Street and its derivatives and mortgage backed securities brought the world to its knees.
No.
I’m not suggesting the conspiracy theories are true and, to some extent, I’m simply making thought provoking observations based on fact (i.e., nobody knows who Satoshi is and 3/4 of mining operations are in China and Russia). I suspect that if the theory of quantum mechanics was published on the Internet with out attribution there would be a lot of skeptics. However, the existence of Stephen Hawking (and others) is what helped it achieve acceptance. There isn’t some British expert resembling an actor on YouTube and Twitter named “Guy the quantum guy” explaining atoms and subatomic particles, while selling t-shirts and click-thru ads. Blockchain and digital assets have a future. Acceptance of BTC on a global scale remains to be seen. Right now, the only “acceptance” I’ve seen from the likes of Musk to MassMutual has nothing to do with the utility of cryptocurrency - it has everything to do with making money. FOMO is driving BTC right now and it’s driving Wall Street nuts that they are leaving easy money on the table.
And, to address “There is no conspiracy with BTC because thousands and thousands of people across the world would have to be in on it” - do you mean like GameStop? Take out “BTC” in your statement and insert “GME”. There were thousands and thousands of people in on the GameStop and AMC madness and many of them had no clue what they were actually buying. And, it was all started by a guy known as “DeepF—kingValue” that became popular on YouTube and Reddit. People bought the GME and AMC stocks and options because they thought it was going to the moon and they would all get rich (except for those that didn’t get out in time). It was all about making a quick buck.
GME wasn't a conspiracy, what was happening was public and well known. Don't understand this point.
For the record, I’m not anti-BTC. I’ve been trying to educate myself for years but haven’t made any moves mainly because I was making plenty of money on other investments. But, with what appears to be a frothy market plus FOMO I’m evaluating BTC as my next potential play. Re: gold, IMO gold’s biggest advantage is that it has uses beyond an investment or store of value - jewelry, electronics, etc. And, this may sound silly, but seems precious metals trigger some innate response in humans that makes us think it’s valuable. Plus, gold wasn’t created by some mystery person unless we want to get into a religious discussion. Regardless, it would be great if I could attend a BTC lecture with Satoshi Nakamoto or watch some interviews with him. But I can’t because nobody apparently knows who “Satoshi Nakamoto” is. In a day and age when we have every technological advantage and supposedly you can trace everything on the internet, we can solve crimes that occurred 30 years ago, trace our DNA to ancestors from hundreds of years ago, etc., nobody can figure out who Satoshi Nakamoto actually is? Yes that’s right - nobody knows the guy that created an asset class that could become a global currency and forever change our financial system? Think of how crazy this sounds. Then, I Google “Bitcoin” and I’m bombarded with videos on YouTube from “Guy the crypto guy”, Cameron Winklevoss, and a bunch of other people that have been pushing BTC for years and stand to make millions or billions. It’s also bizarre that Mr. Nakamoto wouldn’t want to come forward and explain his ingenious idea that may forever change the world’s financial model. Yeah, yeah, I’m sure he’s just a modest guy or a monk that wants to be left alone.
Of course GME was a conspiracy - the only question is whether it broke any laws (probably not based on my understanding of the SEC rules/regs). I don’t have any issue with it other than it’s probably not a good thing for the health of the market and there are certainly more losers than winners especially when you hear that plenty of hedge funds jumped in on the action.
Bitcoin "blocks" are mined and about every 10 minutes a block is solved and rewarded with bitcoin. Approximately every 4 years "blocks" that are mined (meaning solving complicated mathematical problems requiring farms of computers) are halved, meaning the bitcoin rewards are cut in half. The last halving was in May 2020, reducing the reward from 12.5 bitcoins to 6.25. The total amount ends when 21 million bitcoins are mined. That number is currently at 18 million with estimates that only about 4 million are actually in circulation, with the bulk being held (by HODLers) and certain amount that has been lost due lost password keys. Historically, bitcoins have surged in the 12-18 months after this halving, which would take us to the end of this year. The next halving is estimated to occur in 2024.