Business, Economics, and Taxes: Eat Cereal for Dinner

[French Rage]

I'm inclined to agree to a point, but developers and architects aren't going away yet. With the gen AI available now, sure anyone can generate code that's dangerous. It might even work, albeit not efficiently and not necessarily following best practices. I'll admit I've used one of the AI models to generate some simple stub code to save time (like when I need to do a one-time cleanup of records). However, I have to tell it "follow best practice" to get it to include a statement that disables workflow execution, for example, so that I don't go spamming hundreds of people with automated emails that test or old records are updated or closed.

Generating great code still requires writing great specifications, and if people could do that they'd have fully automated it 20 years ago.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Generating great code still requires writing great specifications, and if people could do that they'd have fully automated it 20 years ago.

Old and still true:

 

[Handyman]

Looks like the markets stopped smoking meth again. Dow lost everything it gained yesterday (so far) NASDAQ down 2.4% and S&P down almost 2%.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Dump caved on the Mexico Tariffs entirely. He's such a solid leader.

Joey Politano🏳️‍🌈 (@josephpolitano.bsky.social)

Trump says Mexico tariffs are paused for any USMCA-compliant goods until April 2nd

bsky.app

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

Got the shorts they wanted, time to back off until next month.

 

[Handyman]

Yep. Good lord they aren't even hiding it.

 

[Handyman]

Canada Does This So Well

On Tuesday, Doug Ford, the premier of Ontario (Canada’s most populous province), announced the termination of a 100 million Canadian dollar (~$68 million American) contract with Musk’s satellite company, Starlink. “It’s done, it’s gone,” Ford said at a press conference, referencing the Starlink deal. “We won’t award contracts to people who enable and encourage economic attacks on our province and our country.”

Additionally, Ford said that American companies would be forbidden from bidding on the $30 billion worth of procurement contracts that are annually paid out by the province’s government. “U.S.-based businesses will now lose out on tens of billions of dollars in revenues,” Ford said. “They only have President Trump to blame.”

At the same time, a former high-ranking official has proposed instituting a blanket tariff on Musk’s car company, Tesla. “We are going to go after American stakeholders who matter to the White House. I have proposed a 100 percent tariff on all Teslas,” Chrystia Freeland, the former Deputy Prime Minister of Canada, recently announced. Freeland recently stepped down from her post to run for the slot of Canadian prime minister. “I am calling on all the countries that are affected by this tariff to join us, and our retaliation will target specific Trump constituencies,” Freeland added.

Doug Ford is a tool but he the enemy of my enemy...

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Yep. Good lord they aren't even hiding it.

It's just another example of how they get to game the system. I asked my financial advisor why they can't provide that service to me and he just blew me off.

 

[Handyman]

You need decent amounts of cash to short the market the way they are.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

You need decent amounts of cash to short the market the way they are.

Exactly. Shorting is not for little fish. Technically we could do it, but it takes high volume to really make money, and volume requires access to a margin account with a large borrowing limit. Something few even on this board have the collateral assets to get, let alone assume the risk of losing your bet and having to pay back your loan at a huge loss.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

You need decent amounts of cash to short the market the way they are.

This is why it should be more heavily regulated.

 

[Russell Jaslow]

Exactly. Shorting is not for little fish. Technically we could do it, but it takes high volume to really make money, and volume requires access to a margin account with a large borrowing limit. Something few even on this board have the collateral assets to get, let alone assume the risk of losing your bet and having to pay back your loan at a huge loss.

So question then, if a mutual fund that I belong to does this, wouldn't I get a benefit out of it, since my shares in that mutual fund would gain?

 

[ScoobyDoo]

So question then, if a mutual fund that I belong to does this, wouldn't I get a benefit out of it, since my shares in that mutual fund would gain?

Never seems to work that way.

 

[LynahFan]

So question then, if a mutual fund that I belong to does this, wouldn't I get a benefit out of it, since my shares in that mutual fund would gain?

Nope. You have the same # of shares that you had in your account before the shorting. All that shorting just manipulates the price of those shares, and the way the short-ers win is if the price goes lower - so your same number of shares are now worth less than before. You're buy-and-hold (getting killed) while the short-ers win.

 

[Handyman]

So question then, if a mutual fund that I belong to does this, wouldn't I get a benefit out of it, since my shares in that mutual fund would gain?

There are mutual funds that bet against the market but the return is low.

Plus remember you often have to pay a fee on the short so you don't want to hold them too long. Long term it probably won't be super lucrative. The key is to time it right. Mutual funds don't target that way.

 

[alicestevens]

Old and still true:

so good!

 

[MichVandal]

Except they’re gutting that too with AI.

“Learn to code” might actually be one of the worst pieces of advice right now.

For combustion engine development, I don't think so. It's still an art with a lot of science around it. For EVs? Don't know- but given that battery development is still happening, I also don't think the science is so well defined that the art can be ignored.

And bodies of cars? That is literally art.

Maybe quantum computers can solve the incredibly hard job of solving turbulent air down to it's smallest scale....

Lastly- it it were the case, it would be sweeping the industry rather quickly- remember that the auto industry is probably the most competitive industry in the world- with so many different companies from different countries, that all operate internationally. If one actually used AI to a significant competitive advantage, they all would adopt it quickly.

 

[dxmnkd316]

Exactly. Shorting is not for little fish. Technically we could do it, but it takes high volume to really make money, and volume requires access to a margin account with a large borrowing limit. Something few even on this board have the collateral assets to get, let alone assume the risk of losing your bet and having to pay back your loan at a huge loss.

Not really.

Robinhood lets you open a margin account with very little. Your rates suck ass and the leash is short, but it's not like you need a million dollars.

Besides, all you need is options access and you have multiple ways of profiting from a downturn even if you don't operate on the margin.

Even less complicated are the triple leveraged inverse ETFs. Those are NOT for the faint of heart and plenty have been liquidated but they still exist. Hell, if you want to short Tesla at 2x leverage all you need to buy is TSLQ which is traded on NASDAQ and you don't even need an options or margin account!

YOU SHOULD ABSOLUTELY NOT PLAY WITH THESE INSTRUMENTS. THEY ARE DANGEROUS AND YOU WILL LOSE.

 

[French Rage]

so good!

You like the story of your conception?

 

[dxmnkd316]

my favorite is still the SVXY. It's an inverse VIX. It's basically betting on non-volatile markets. It got (nearly??) liquidated a few years back when I think it was Covid caused it to lose like 90% of its value in a single day. Total annihilation

Edit: Nope it was 2018 lmao.

It was such a dangerous instrument that its less risky counterpart (XIV) was pulled entirely. But these vultures kept theirs but decreased the leverage to like 0.5x.