Slashdot Mirror
Nearly a Third of Millennials Say They'd Rather Own Bitcoin Than Stocks (bloomberg.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: A survey by venture capital firm Blockchain Capital found that about 30 percent of those in the 18-to-34 age range would rather own $1,000 worth of Bitcoin than $1,000 of government bonds or stocks. The study of more than 2,000 people found that 42 percent of millennials are at least somewhat familiar with bitcoin, compared with 15 percent among those ages 65 and up. Bitcoin rose more than 6 percent Wednesday to as much as $7,545, helping to push the value of the total cryptocurrency market above $200 billion for the first time, according to CoinMarketcap. The digital asset has soared more than 600 percent this year, compared with gains of 15 percent for the S&P 500 Index -- which might explain millennials' attraction.
Bitcoin and stocks have something in common. Their price has absolutely no connection to reality. Since Bitcoin is new and tech-y, younger people feel more comfortable with it, even though it's all a complete scam, just like the stock market.
Don't run with the herd if you want to make real money..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Millennials are no smarter than previous generations by chasing performance in investments. Most people have no clue and just invest in what is popular today. I remember just how many people were buying up tech stocks in 1999 and ate the loses. Pets.com anyone?
And this is how the unknowing are separated from their wealth. Buy high, sell low, boys.
BitCoin are unregulated investment instruments. They can't keep climbing indefinitely and some people will lose their shirts.
Not you of course. No, you're special.
The most dangerous words in finance are 'this time is different' and no, no it's not different. Investments are regulated so that people are protected from the Bernie Madoffs of the world and it's necessary to do so.
---- The above post was generated by the Turing Institute. Maybe.
which weighs more.... a pound of feathers or a pound of lead?
I'd love to have been a fly on the wall at the meeting where they
came up with that name.
But I've, like, watched a few episodes of W1A or something and I suspect it's totally a close substitute.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Perhaps millennials are too young to remember what a bubble is?
This is true. I have worked in finance for years. Virtually no one is prepared for what they think will be retirement. Maybe 5% of them are actually prepared. The rest are depending on completely unrealistic and borderline delusional expectations. This is not just Millennials; it includes many Boomers and many, many Xers, but it will keep getting worse.
Social Security and Medicare are mathematically insolvent. Anyone who says otherwise does not understand how numbers work. They will end in disaster. Do NOT depend on those programs sticking around.
Stop taking out student loans to study music, art, English literature, Aborginial studies or virtually anything else in humanities or fine arts. If you want to study those things, buy books; do not take out hundreds of thousands of dollars you will never be able to pay back. Do not listen to these talking heads telling you that everyone has to go to college; it is a lie. Most people should not go to college unless they actually have to or specifically want to become a scholar. Employers do not care about 90% of these worthless degrees, and a new economy is dawning.
Learn skills. Educate yourself. Learn how to make money on your own. Avoid debt when possible. Do not commit to large purchases like homes and cars that you need to heavily finance.
Save, start a business, learn a trade, network, and learn to be income self-reliant. That is how you can survive the financial train wreck that is coming.
Do it right. Invest in blockchain companies and their technologies. Not currency.
---Up Up Down Down Left Right Left Right B A START
Tech stocks? Sure, but there are actually a lot of traditional stocks that actually pay dividends. Banks, and the traditional industrial set come to mind. They're not sexy, but they are one of the reasons why Warren Buffet is as wealthy as he is.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
If you invest in Bitcoin you run the risk of having your money stolen illegally. If you invest in Stocks you run the risk of having your money stolen legally. I no longer invest in stocks because every time I purchase or sell stocks, a good percentage of my money gets syphoned off. And I would not invest in BitCoin either because it is a bubble economy and too prone to theft.
It's too late to jump in the bitcoin market now. The run is nearly over and everyone and their dog are now jumping in - which is a pretty good sign that a drop in price is imminent.
The suckers are lining up and the people with all the amassed bitcoin will likely sell it off to the suckers at the top of the market.
Then the price will fall out of the bottom as demand is saturated.
Economics has everything to do with value and what people are willing to pay, and especially in the case of currency trading, which prices the orders and money sits at and NOTHING ELSE. Sure, news may influence people's positions, but at the end of the day - money talks and BS walks.
You never try to chase after a quickly falling or rising price by jumping in the market going in the same direction.
Where people see a dropping market, you have to be thinking as a buyer.
You buy at the low prices and sell at the high prices, and never EVER the other way around.
As the bitcoin price goes up, those holding bitcoins will be thinking of selling and taking profits.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
> The digital asset has soared more than 600 percent this year, compared with gains of 15 percent for the S&P 500 Index -- which might explain millennials' attraction.
I wonder about the causality in this sentence...
1/3 of millennials don't understand risk, volatility or liquidity.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
"The study of more than 2,000 people found that 42 percent of millennials are at least somewhat familiar with bitcoin..."
2,000 people didn't read anything and just clicked "I Agree".
Yup, there it is, on page 37 of the Investing 101 EULA...the definition of volatility...
For the average person, passive stock investing is better than active.
If you'd bought any Canadian bank stock 20 years ago and done nothing but reinvest the dividends in the same stock, you'd have beat Warren Buffet for the 20 year period.
All these stupid books do nothing but make money for the sleazeball authors. If the strategy worked they'd use it rather than tell everyone about it.
A third of millennials would rather own bitcoin than stocks.
Forty-three percent of millennials prefer socialism to capitalism.
Discuss.
https://thefederalist.com/2017...
https://legalinsurrection.com/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'd thought the money was in trading them, not owning them. There's a book called "Where are the Customer's Yachts" that talks about all this.
Investing in the stock market is, if nothing else, a hedge against inflation. Historically, the stock market has outperformed the inflation rate by a significant margin. That's not to say other investments aren't good (like bonds, real estate, etc.)
You may not get stinking rich by investing in the stock market, but with careful planning, you can get a return that helps you to buy other things that matter, such as a home, an education, the odd vacation, a comfortable retirement, and so on.
And yes, if you want a yacht, investing can help you get one. Maybe just a small one, though.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
How many millenials even own a house?
When they were kids, they were the generation that would rather own Beany Babies than stocks. Since the bottom dropped out of the Beany Baby bubble, they are looking for something else.
At least a third of millennials are financially illiterate.
"Bitcoin" is a specific asset. "Stocks" are a class of asset. You want your assets diversified so that if something terribly wrong is found with one of them (e.g., a cryptographic flaw in Bitcoin) you are not wiped out.
If you were invested in a diverse portfolio on Black Tuesday-- the day the stock market crashed setting off the Great Depression -- you'd have been find even if your portfolio consisted entirely of stocks. It was people who put all their eggs in one basket that lost everything.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Nearly a third of millennials are complete idiots.
Very accurate. They are just familiar with the name and are enamored with it.
I'd also suspect these people have zero interest in saving for retirement.
I'd thought the money was in trading them, not owning them. There's a book called "Where are the Customer's Yachts" that talks about all this.
Active traders who get lucky make big money. Those who don't lose big money. For the typical investor it's better to buy a diverse basket, anchored by blue chips, and just accept the 10-12% average annual return -- with occasional periods of much better results and occasional periods of much worse results.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
100% of millennials have never been personally affected by a commodity bubble bursting.
Sometimes people have to learn lessons the hard way.
scalability will be needed for it to replaces all currencies. And when mining stop makeing new coins and lot's of miners drop out leaving to it costing more to do the backed transactions then they payed for them?
"Life savings?" $50 is less than $1000 bucks mate.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Worthless?
If you want to do a hostile takeover of a company, what's one way you can do it? Yep... buy 50.00001% of the voting stock...... Or regular stock if they haven't been split into voting vs non-voting. You now control the whole company...
As you can see, stocks are hardly worthless.
Back in the day (and maybe still today) there were guys who would research the shit out of companies and if they found the stock price versus the value of all of the company's assets were out of sync (stock price was too low), they would buy up 50.1% of the company (via stock), force a sale, and then liquidate the whole company. Whatever they made from the sale minus the cost of the stock was the profit.
My memory may not be accurate on what the procedure was called, but I seem to remember the guys were generally called Corporate Raiders.
Didn't matter if the company was profitable, or in good long term shape, it was a way to make a quick buck and there were people who did it.. Fucked a whole lot of folks out of good jobs once the company was liquidated......
I wonder how qualified those "millennials" were.
If they were not enough, the original question could turn to: do you prefer to own a pasta drainer or a smartphone?
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
What would a millennial be doing on Slashdot?
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
A third of millennials have never heard of black tulips
The (silent) majority don't.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The entire stock market seems to consist of a bunch of morons that have no idea what they're backing, but just want some money, based on charts they've seen. This was especially hilarious when the fuckwits jumped to Nintendo stock when a game by Niantic and The Pokemon Company became super popular. It's also pretty evident when you watch "investors" on shows like the Shark Tank.
Bitcoin has some chance at catching on, but not until major retailers start using it. I mean, the money we use right now isn't what it used to be... it's not gold-backed like it once was. And it's not like it holds any actual value outside of a hunk of metal/paper that you can trade.
This is exactly why it should be banned immediately before it causes real damage and deaths.
Put all your eggs into one basket, that's real smart.
Two thirds of them think having tribal tattoos and piercings designed to take a ship's hawser make them original and creative.
I wonder what the degree of overlap is.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Same with Junk Bonds. Many are just groupings of loans to big companies and have survived 2 crashes. They pay monthly dividends as well. If hedged correctly over different industries they are relatively safe. But of course they can also default (but so can every company).
no, seriously, they're dumb.
I agree except that the historical average has been more like 7% rather than 10-12%. Though obviously in shorter periods the averages have been both higher and lower. One of the criticisms of Dave Ramsey is that he touts the 10-12% number as gospel and while the strategy is still correct people will expect to do a lot better than reality might dictate. While it might not seem like a major difference, over the long term it really adds up.
All well and good but categorically refusing to consider incurring debt to own a vehicle or home is bad advice. In some very specific markets this could be good advice but in most of the USA at least it is foolhardy.
Not owning a means of reliable transportation means you are likely limiting your ability to seek employment, or business opportunities, to a much smaller range. Renting in perpetuity means you are very likely paying more for your living space with nothing to show for it in the end. While renting allows you to escape the responsibility for paying a mortgage you are subject to eviction should the owner decide to stop paying it. There is a lot to be said for living within your means, not buying vehicles and properties with little added value but exponentially larger price tags.
I agree except that the historical average has been more like 7% rather than 10-12%.
The Dow Jones average since 1900 has been 10%. The S&P 500 average since its inception in 1923 is 12%. Certainly, if you're making plans for retirement, etc., you should choose a more conservative number just to be safe, and because as you approach retirement you'll want to shift to less aggressive investments with lower rates of return. Personally, I assume 5% after inflation.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Sadly that means a larger percentage of Millennials are smart compared to everyone else.
Owning is a fairly safe way to make reasonable profit on your investment. You're extremely unlikely to get rich that way, but if you diversify and are willing to be patient during value dips you're extremely unlikely to lose significantly.
Trading stocks is a much higher-risk higher-gain practice. The big money is in trading them. Of course, the big money comes from lots of little investments, and unless there's a good reason why you should be receiving big money rather than losing the money so someone else can win big, it's not a sure thing. Invest some of your life savings in stock ownership. Don't spend more than you can afford to lose in day trading.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I mean let's face it, the vast majority of the world is not made up of stock brokers and wallstreet types. They don't actively research investments in great detail and are often suckered in by marketing, and news of the day (arguably so is wallstreet).
So with that in mind what would you invest in in the absence of any real research:
a) A stock market which over the last 5 years has been incredibly stagnant.
b) This bitcoin thing which over the last 5 years has increased in value by 6000%.
I wonder if more than 2/3rds of every other generation is able to make sound investment decisions. I wonder if all the people who are moaning about bitcoin do too.
"More than Two Thirds of Millennials Say They'd Rather Own Stocks Than Bitcoin"
but that would imply the opposite idea, rather than the preconceived notion that the authors wanted you to think.
The media is full of that kind of thing: sensationalizing the headline to grab attention, whereas if you really think about the information it's not so interesting.
It would be nice if slashdot editors didn't get sucked in and pass these kinds of things onto us though.
-- the only thing we have to fear is really scary things
It depends on the government. Greece? Nope. California city or town with absurd pension fund commitments? One in Illinois? Illinois? Nope, nope, and nope. California? Uh, no. U.S.A. national government bonds? Haven't checked the credit rating lately, but it's certainly still better than Greece. But nope, in the very long run. St. Louis, Missouri? Nope, not even if it gets grafted (pun intended) back onto St. Louis County. Ferguson? Double nope.
Other governments might be a better bet. Any government in Switzerland seems like a safe place.
Bitcoin is unprecedented, so it's not just risky, the risk is unknowable. As is the upside. It could be Betamax. ("What's Betamax?") It could be Intel. It could become Intel and then Betamax.
The most you could lose is $1000, same as those government bonds. The most you could make is much higher for BTC.
Not something to put your life's savings into. But a grand? Sure.
There's no time like the present. Well, the past used to be.