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[Jimmy]

Unfortunately, the outcome of who sits in the office of the POTUS is unlikely to dictate future market trends over the long term. Investor confidence aside, world markets being what they are thanks to pandemic circumstances mean we're in for lean times. With this so soon after the GFC thanks to US sub-prime mortgages, the new millennium is a bad time to risk exposure in the markets unless you can afford slow growth and risk a third downturn due to some future crisis.

Unless you had the foresight to invest in toilet paper futures at the beginning of this year. Then you're on a roll.

[Starver]

Then you're on a roll.

*fwap"

[balrogkernel]

Haven't put any money into the speculation game though trying to understand how it works.  The government regularly picks winners. 

Check out the winners at: https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/smccf.htm

Still don't understand how calls and puts work, just have a dabbling skill level.  Looks like that calls, buys, indicate a willingness to purchase stocks because there's some consensus about a stock's ability to pay out over a longer period of time.  Puts are for selling and getting money now but if that company ended up paying out you lose money.   

Loans and the ability for companies to take loans also appear to significantly influence the stock market.  Major speculation appears to be guesses on what the interest rate will be and if companies can pay out with the current loan rates. 

Safe sources of income like treasuries are yielding really low or even negative in some countries because I think there's a lot of risk? 

Finance and energy companies have been doing really awful from what I understand, so it looks like the government is going to intervene in a lot of situations.  In the long term it looks like those companies listed at  https://www.federalreserve.gov/monetarypolicy/smccf.htm are chosen winners so they get government intervention, meaning that they can withhold their earnings or pay out with more flexibility. 

Companies like home depot and real-estate speculation seems to rely on how much people are willing to spend on home improvement stuff.  My guess is that over the long term no other companies can compete, and if the demand for homes keeps up Lowes/Home Depot and those types of companies are going to do well.

I never researched it but companies that deal directly with food, and candy like Hershey are probably worth keeping an eye on. 

If we get lucky, it's possible that fusion energy might be viable in the future.  The Italian company Eni S.p.A has been investing in MIT to develop mini fusion https://www.eni.com/en-IT/operations/sustainable-energy-study.html and from what I've seen and heard it seems to have a solid plan.  Though if energy companies really fail hard it'll be a bad investment.

In general it seems like investing in the fortune 500 companies is better in general, because they choke out competition and do well in environments where smaller businesses can't survive.  Speculation people keep talking about having a "fluid" mind, whatever that means.  Still trying to learn this stuff as a side project of a side project. 

[Jimmy]

If you're of the economic mindset and enjoy a bit of hollywood dramatization, I thoroughly enjoyed the movies The Big Short and Margin Call as a distillation of the previous economic crisis through a director's lens. Who knows, you might even get some inspiration from them?

[anewaname]

Still don't understand how calls and puts work, just have a dabbling skill level.  Looks like that calls, buys, indicate a willingness to purchase stocks because there's some consensus about a stock's ability to pay out over a longer period of time.  Puts are for selling and getting money now but if that company ended up paying out you lose money.

"Call options" and "Put options" are contracts to buy or sell something at a fixed price within a larger time window than the usual Buy/Sell contracts where the assets (usually cash and the financial instrument).

A "short" is when you take a contract to sell something you do not currently own.

The pursuit of price volatility is the more common reason for options trading.