Do you or someone you know currently have a home warranty or are considering getting one? Curious about getting more work for your company by becoming a technician with a home warranty? Have some questions about your home appliances and/or major systems? Been ripped off in the past by a home warranty company or technician of the same? Well you are in the right place. I'll tell you what I know, help in any way I can. For free.
The real DD on SLV, the worlds biggest short squeeze is possible and we can make history
Update 2/4 - someone went ahead and spelled out the mechanics of the squeeze quite well and I would like to give their post attention https://www.reddit.com/wallstreetbets/comments/lc8vgo/slv_is_not_going_to_get_squeezedslv_is_the_trojan/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf Update 2/2 - I am able to comment again. I messaged several mods on Reddit and the mod account on Twitter. None of them responded but it appears I am able to comment again so I assume one of them lifted my ban Update 2/1 - I have been banned from posting on WSB. I guess they aren’t yet deleting my post here given the media attention. If this was a rogue mod I’d appreciate being restored the ability to post on WSB. I’m open to talking to any mods Update 1/31 - there have been tons of 'what to buy' questions so I added a clarity post, hope it helps. It's also getting downvoted to hell because its not about GME so that's discouraging. The speed at which the downvotes flew in makes me think someone made bots to crush new posts related to SLV (or maybe anything not GME). It makes no sense for this post to have 93% upvotes and my new one to have 28%. I have not sold my GME to buy SLV. I had a small pre-existing position in leaps I bought months ago. Created an official Twitter handle not sure if I’ll use it, but didn’t want anyone to impersonate me on there Here is the longer DD for the short squeeze case for SLV, a follow-up from my shorter post a few hours ago. Note that I talk in first person as this is something I’m going to do. Everyone is free to do as they individually please and copy my trade if they’d like to. I think it’s absurd that forces at be think this forum is manipulating by posting publicly but that’s where we are at right now. First things first, I'm not doing this until the GME rise is done. I am long GME but am going long SLV immediately after. Update 1/29: due to the manipulation and collusion of citadel, hedge funds, and brokers to change the rules and rig the game in their favor. Who likely knew ahead of time and bought puts right before and calls at the bottom, GME is too important to abandon still. SLV is still my next play but GME needs to go to $1000 and these people need to go to jail. If you just want to know what to buy skip to the end I present 2 investment DDs in this post, the short squeeze and the fundamentals. If you want to see what to buy The short squeeze: Buy SLV shares and SLV call options to force physical delivery of silver to the SLV vaults. Also buy physical silver bullion. The best possible thing would be to take physical delivery in the futures market if you have access to do so. The silver futures market has oscillated between having roughly 100-1 and 500-1 ratio of paper traded silver to physical silver, but lets call it 250-1 for now. This means that for every 250 ounces in open interest in the futures market, only 1 actually gets delivered. Most traders would rather settle with cash rather than take delivery of thousands of ounces of silver and have to figure out to store and transport it in the future. The people naked shorting silver via the futures markets are a couple of large banks and making them pay dearly for their over leveraged naked shorts would be incredible. It's not Melvin capital on the other side of this trade, its JP Morgan. Time to get some payback for the bailouts and manipulation they've done for decades (look up silver manipulation fines that JPM has paid over the years). The way the squeeze could occur is by forcing a much higher percentage of the futures contracts to actually deliver physical silver. There is very little silver in the COMEX vaults or available to actually be use to deliver, and if they have to start buying en masse on the open market they will drive the price massively higher. There is no way to magically create more physical silver in the world that is ready to be delivered. With a stock you can eventually just issue more shares if the price rises too much, but this simply isn't the case here. The futures market is kind of the wild west of the financial world. Real commodities are being traded, and if you are short, you literally have to deliver thousands of ounces of silver per contract if the holder on the other side demands it. If you remember oil going negative back in May, that was possible because futures are allowed to trade to their true value. They aren't halted and that's what will make this so fun when the true squeeze happens. Edit for more detail: let’s say there’s one futures seller who gets unlucky and gets the buyer who actually wants to take delivery. He doesn’t have the silver and realizes it’s all of a sudden damn difficult to find some physical silver. He throws up his hands and just goes long a matching number of futures contracts and will demand actual delivery on those. Problem solved because he has now matched the demanding buyer with a new seller. The issue is that the new seller has the same issue and does the exact same thing. This is how the cascade effect of a meltup occurs. All the naked shorts trying to offload their position to someone who actually has some silver. My goal is to ensure that I have the silver and won’t sell to them until silver is at a far higher price due to the desperation. The silver market is much larger than GME in terms of notional value, but there is very little physical silver actually readily available (think about the difference between total shares and the shares in the active float for a stock), and the paper silver trading hands in the futures market is hundreds of times larger than what is available. Thus when they are forced to actually deliver physical silver it will create a massive short squeeze where an absurd amount of silver will be sought after (to fulfill their contractually obligated delivery) with very little available to actually buy. They are naked shorting silver and will have to cover all at once and the float as a percentage of the total silver stock globally is truly miniscule. The fundamentals: The current gold to silver ratio is 73-1. Meaning the price of gold per ounce is 73 times the price of silver. Naturally occurring silver is only 18.75 times as common as gold, so this ratio of 73-1 is quite high. Until the early 20th century, silver prices were pegged at a 15-1 ratio to gold in the US because this ratio was relatively known even then. In terms of current production, the ratio is even lower at 8-1. Meaning the world is only producing 8 ounces of silver for each newly produced ounce of gold. Global industry has been able to get away with producing so little new silver for so long because governments have dumped silver on the market for 80 years, but now their silver vaults are empty. At the end of WW2 government vaults globally contained 10 billion ounces of silver, but as we moved to fiat currency and away from precious metal backed currencies, the amount held by governments has decreased to only 0.24 billion ounces as they dumped their supply into the market. But this dumping is done now as their remaining supply is basically nil. This 0.24 billion ounces represents only 8% of the total supply of only 3 billion ounces stored as investment globally. This means that 92% of that gold is held privately by institutions and by millions of boomer gold and silver bugs who have been sitting on meager gains for decades. These boomers aren't going to sell no matter what because they see their silver cache as part of their doomsday prepper supplies. It's locked away in bunkers they built 500 miles from their house. Also, with silver at $23 an ounce currently, this means all of the worlds investment grade silver only has a total market cap of $70 billion. For comparison the investment grade gold in the world is worth roughly $6 trillion. This is because most of the silver produced each year actually gets used, as I have mentioned. $70 billion sounds like a lot, but we don’t have to buy all that much for the price to go up a lot. **If the squeeze happens, it would be like 40 years worth of their gains in 4 months ** The reason that only 8 ounces of silver are produced for every 1 ounce of gold in today's world is because there aren't really any good naturally occurring silver deposits left in the world. Silver is more common than gold in the earth's crust, but it is spread very thin. Thus nearly every ounce of silver produces is actually a byproduct of mining for other metals such as gold or copper. This means that even as the silver price skyrockets, it wont be easy to increase the supply of silver being produced. Even if new mines were to be constructed, it could take years to come online. Finally, most of this newly created silver supply each year is used for productive purposes rather than kept for investment. It is used in electronics, solar panels, and jewelry for the most part. This demand wont go away if the silver price rises, so the short sellers will be trying to get their hands on a very small slice of newly minted silver. The solar market is also growing quickly and political pressure to increase solar and electric vehicles could provide more industrial demand. The other part of the story is the faster moving piece and that is the inflation and currency debasement fear portion. The government and the fed are printing money like crazy debasing the value of the dollar, so investors look for real assets like precious metals to hide out in, driving demand for silver. The $1.9 trillion stimulus passing in a month or two could be a good catalyst. All this money combined with the reopening of the economy could cause some solid inflation to occur, and once inflation starts it often feeds on itself. What to buy: Edit 2/24: I now advocate buying PSLV for shares, physical metal if the premiums come back down, and if you want options then SLV is still ok for that. I will be putting 50% directly into SLV shares, and 50% into the $35 strike SLV calls expiring 4/16. This way the SLV purchase creates a groundswell into silver immediately that then rockets through a gamma squeeze as SLV approaches $35. Price target of $75 for SLV by end of April if the short squeeze happens. Edit: for the part of your purchases going into shares, some people recommend PSLV because they think SLV might start lying about having the silver in their vault. Or that the custodian will be double counting, ie claiming that the same silver belongs to multiple people (banking on the fact that people wont all try to get their silver at once). So if you buy SLV shares and calls, that's great. But I think it could be prudent for us to buy options in SLV (no options on PSLV) and shares in PSLV. It all depends on how paranoid you want to be. There is a lot of paranoia in the precious metals world. Alternate options: - buying physical silver; this also works but you pay a premium to buy and sell so its less efficient and you take fewer silver ounces off of the market because of the premium you pay - going long futures for February or March; if you are a rich bastard and can actually take physical delivery of 1000s of ounces of silver by all means do so. But if you simply settle for cash you are actually part of the problem. We need actual physical delivery, which is what SLV demands and is why SLV is the way to go unless you are going to take delivery - miners; I don’t recommend buying miners as part of this trade. Miners will absolutely go up if SLV goes up, but buying them doesn't create the squeeze in the actual silver market. Furthermore, most silver miners only derive 30-50% of their revenue from silver anyways, so eventually SLV will outperform them as it gets high enough (and each marginal SLV dollar only increases miner profits by a smaller and smaller percentage) Details on SLV physical settlement: When SLV issues shares, the custodian is forced to true up their vaults with the proportional amount of silver daily. From the SLV prospectus: "An investment in Shares is: Backed by silver held by the Custodian on behalf of the Trust. The Shares are backed by the assets of the Trust. The Trustee’s arrangements with the Custodian contemplate that at the end of each business day there can be in the Trust account maintained by the Custodian no more than 1,100 ounces of silver in an unallocated form. The bulk of the Trust’s silver holdings is represented by physical silver, identified on the Custodian’s or, if applicable, sub-custodian's, books in allocated and unallocated accounts on behalf of the Trust and is held by the Custodian in London, New York and other locations that may be authorized in the future." Join me brothers. Lets take silver to the moon and take on the biggest and baddest manipulators in the world. Please post rocket emojis in the comments as desired. Disclaimer: do your own research, make your own decisions, everything here is a guess and hypothetical and nothing is guaranteed, not a financial advisor, I have ADHD and maybe other things too. Bear case: silver does tend to sell off if the broader market plunges so it’s not immune to broad market sell off. It’s also the most manipulated market in the world so we are facing some tough competition on the short side
The community doesn’t understand game development - A very long post from a game designer
I’ve been playing Destiny for quite some time and I’ve enjoyed the community around it a lot, but the one thing that frustrates me the most about Destiny is how little the community actually knows about game development. It’s driving me crazy, so I wrote this whole thing down. I’m a game designeproducer myself, I’ve never worked on a project as massive as Destiny (not many people ever do), but I have worked on several gaming projects, some of them big in large companies, some of them small gaming apps. I know enough to explain the basics here, but I’m definitely not the ultimate authority on videogames and I’m not representing Bungie whatsoever, everything here is only from my experience. My goal here is to give you some useful info and calm my mind about this. The Destiny community is incredibly vocal, especially this sub, which is generally a good thing, but the lack of understanding really damages not only the enjoyment of the community members but also the game itself IMO. I’ll explain some of the basics I think any hardcore fan should know here with an example and then I’ll outline some specific problems. How Games Are Made A videogame pipeline can be simplified into this flow: Demand from the top/the market -> top management decision -> design and prototyping -> development and feedbacks -> in house testing -> public testing -> marketing and publishing -> data collecting and analysis -> feedback implementation. It’s a circle that applies to everything from the big picture like the main campaign, to the smallest details like colors of shaders or proofreading of even the smallest posts. Every decision made in this system, even the tiniest ones, has to be debated, supported by data and expertise, approved in multiple places based on the priority, and checked multiple times after it’s implemented. Game developers, especially in a powerhouse like Bungie, are very skilled, talented, experienced, and passionate people who always do their best to navigate that flow to satisfy the demands with a quality product delivered on time. I can’t stress this enough, developers (including QA testers, designers, artists, marketing, publishing, the whole team) are pretty much always incredibly hard-working people with a love for video games, because otherwise, they would never stay in this scummy business. They’re underpaid, overworked, and most likely overqualified for what they have to do. Some of them know almost everything there is to know about their field and they’re always improving as well. Because video games, especially gargantuan living games with real-time action combat like Destiny, are insanely complicated, you need sometimes hundreds of experts to put them together. The pipeline needs to be perfectly planned, flexible so you can adapt to problems, and also easy enough to implement so you can deliver the product on time. All of these factors result in a tight-rope walk that never ends. Now it’s time for an example. Let’s say during Season of the Worthy you get an assignment to create a catalyst for Thorn that would make it more popular in PVE, but doesn’t make it overpowered in PVP. Seems simple enough, right? There are dozens of posts about this topic on this subreddit, how hard can it be. The answer is, very, very hard. You start working on your designs. You analyze all other exotic catalysts and hand cannon perks in the game - how they were made, their philosophy, psychological effects, and how they influence gameplay, you discuss everything in your team. When you create your first version, your design lead tells your whole team that hand cannons are getting a range buff and Thorn is now a 140 RPM and you have to adjust your design. After that, your priorities get shifted to helping with Beyond Light and the DSC weapons so it’s finished on time, so you put Thorn on hold. You don’t want to waste time though, so you give the art team an assignment to create the catalyst icon. After two months of work on Beyond Light, you come back to Thorn, but now you basically have to start over because the future meta has changed so much. You create new designs and this time they’re approved by management, so you move onto prototyping. Developers are way too busy debugging and QA testing Beyond Light, so they have no time for Thorn and that task gets put into their To-Do list. You have no choice but to move onto your other tasks and start working on weapons for seasons 13 and 14. When development starts finally working on Thorn, they find an exploit in your design that would allow it to two tap in PVP, you have to rework it again and hope they’ll have time to implement it this time. They don’t and the Thorn catalyst now officially misses its deadline and is pushed from Beyond Light. The marketing team doesn’t hear about it though, so they publish the icon you had made four months ago, leaking the catalyst coming out. This is of course your fault, but these things happen during all the chaos and there was almost nothing you could have done. When you finally push this task through and it’s checked and approved dozens of times in different places (weapon design team, design lead, writing, sandbox team, development, QA, studio director, etc.) you have to make sure it’s published correctly in the right build, it has all necessary descriptions and marketing texts done and translated into all languages and the community managers know about it so they can get ready to collect data. This single task took you a year to complete even when you did your best to do it fast and well and I left out about 90% of problems you would normally encounter. THIS is game development. Community Attitude and Feedback Now we get to why the uninformed community hurts the game so much. This sub would only see Thorn getting a catalyst and it would immediately be flooded with posts like “The catalyst sucks in PVE, buff pls”, “Bungo doesn’t care, the catalyst sucks for Warlocks” and a few “Why catalyst for Thorn, but not for Skyburner’s Oath”, completely missing the point of the catalyst and adding nothing to the discussion. Bungie devs are way more informed, skilled, and experienced than us, the community. The only feedback they are interested in from us is quantitative - basically what we like and what we don’t like about the game. Any posts giving them ideas, elaborate reworks, or straight up negative outrage will accomplish nothing, because they already know everything about the game and discuss it daily in way more detail than we could ever imagine. The only qualitative feedback they should collect and measure is from content creators and the top 1% of the player base because those people actually know some aspects of the game Bungie doesn’t. I know it may sound like the hated “Bungo only listens to sweats and Youtubers”, but that’s kinda the point, they should be listening. It doesn’t mean that our voices are ignored or not listened to. I would bet all of my money that all forums are constantly monitored and analyzed. The truth is, however, that the only valid opinion we can give that Bungie should consider is what aspects of the game we like, and what aspects we don’t. Anything beyond that we already tell them through data they collect from our play sessions. As I wrote above, any change within this massive game is complicated and could take months or years to be implemented, so being upset we don’t have everything now is just useless. Bungie is hard at work to make good stuff, we should respect them more and not bring out the pitchforks every time a season slows down a bit and we can’t play for four hours a day every day for the whole year. There will always be problems in a live game and they are doing a fantastic job, I can’t even imagine how much work must go into it. So before you post about something in the future, take a moment to think about the process and figure out what exactly you can provide to the devs with your feedback, because otherwise, you’re fanning the flames on something that probably isn’t actually burning. It’s just taking its time as it should. With all of the above said, it isn't the community's fault that we're not informed. The fault lies entirely with Bungie not educating people enough and this problem could be avoided. Reasons Why Things Suck I’ll close by giving my two cents on why the game isn’t perfect and never will be, just so you know where the community's frustrations should go.
The biggest reason that influences everything - Bungie is a company owned by a group of shareholders that will always force the studio to grow and provide more profit. With every extra dollar, the value of the company grows and the board of directors gets richer and because of the super predatory capitalism we live in now, Bungie has to justify every single decision with a monetary value. It's not the fault of the devs, they don't make much money themselves.
The game is massive and always online. I’m pretty confident that no other studio would be able to support Destiny for so long without the game completely crashing down. Technology always evolves and it’s almost impossible to keep a living game up to date, so some parts of the front end of the game will always suck because Bungie has to upkeep the back end we will never get to see.
The project has been going on for a decade, which leads to people wanting to naturally move on. Replacing team members on a living game is very difficult, which leads to problems and delays.
The community is not educated about the game enough, which is why I ended up writing this. The continuous cycle of negative outrage that comes from a lack of understanding damages the game because the devs are forced to deal with it without disclosing information. If people knew more, they could help Bungie, but no company that wants to make big profits will ever open up its communication because it would show just how many decisions are influenced by the search for profit.
That’s it, sorry for the length of this essay. I hope you learned something and let me know if you’d be interested in more stuff like this (takes on sunsetting, sandbox, etc.). I would like to give people more info so they don’t waste their precious time on stuff completely outside of their control and maybe educate people about the industry. I love the game and I hope you’ll appreciate it a bit more now. Edit 1: This post is not meant as a defense for the faults of the game or an excuse for bad decisions, it's meant as a resource to give you perspective and information. If you believe the game is not as good as it was promised to be or disagree with some design choices made, you are of course entitled to your own opinion, and there are quite a few things I myself absolutely hate in Destiny. I can't answer questions related to design on Destiny with confidence, because I don't work for Bungie and I won't speculate much on why certain decisions were made. I can give you my opinion on stuff like sunsetting based on my experience in another post, but ultimately it's only speculation with little benefit. All I will say is that there is always more stuff we don't know about the game than we do know and design should be judged in context. When it comes to questions related to Bungie's scummy tactics when it comes to monetization and bad communication, I agree with you, as I said above. Money is the biggest factor of why Destiny suffers and the best way for us to do anything about that is to stop buying it. I know it's a cliche statement, but it's true. And lastly, for the comments saying stuff like "shut up, Bungie sucks and you know it", please read what I said again and think about it. The devs most likely love the game just as much as you once did, if not much more. Edit 2: I'll add one thing that keeps popping up. It's clear that Destiny is a product developed for profit, so if your outlook is "I don't want to know about development, I'm just an unhappy consumer that didn't like this product", I agree as would most likely everybody that it's absolutely a valid stance, but that's not what my post was about. If that's how you see any product, you should tell the producer why you didn't like it if you care enough to do so and move on. The post is meant to inform people who don't want to move on from Destiny, especially those who continuously engage with the product from a place of understanding even if they don't have it, which wastes their time and does nothing for the product. If you don't like this game or any other game, it's absolutely OK and you should move on from playing it, complaining about things you don't want to understand won't help you achieve what you want and only makes the game worse. As I said above, the best way to show your disagreements is not to support the company and if you don't like Destiny, please stop playing it and take care of yourself. Your time is valuable, don't give it away to someone you don't agree with. Edit 3 This will be the last edit on this post. I appreciate all the awards and great discussions happening below, but holy cow did this get a lot of vitriol. I expected a lot of negativity, but it still surprised me. It's partially my fault for trying to talk about so much with not enough room so I'm sure I made a few mistakes. I'll reply to a few things that I want to make clear and then leave this alone, it's way too long anyway. If you see any malicious intent, attacks, arrogance, or "Bungie shilling" between the lines, I put none there, at least not on purpose. My goal was to inform, as I said right at the start, so if you see any other agenda, it's not there and my writing either wasn't clear enough, or you're looking for something that I didn't write. Take the post for what it is, a stranger on the internet telling you something you may not know from their experience. If you disagree with me, downvote the post and explain why, no need to insult anyone, you're once again wasting your precious time. I didn't mention management as a problem on Destiny, because I don't know enough about it. Leadership is very often a problem on any collaborative projects but calling someone out without the necessary data is exactly what I warned about in my post, so I won't comment on it, but feel free to disagree with me. Maybe you know more about the subject than I do and I'll be happy to read your reply. I never put myself up as an ultimate authority on the subject, all of this is just basics I thought hardcore fans should know and I communicated that. This post was already very long and I didn't have time, nor did I want to describe theory in detail, so insulting me over not explaining how scrum works in a post meant for people with no experience is not necessary. If you want to argue about production methodologies, my reasoning on examples given, and how healthy management looks like with me please feel free to message me and I'm sure we'll have a cool conversation, I'd love to hear about your experience from working in gaming. And that's it, I hope you got something out of this. Have a great day and see you around.
Rocket Companies (RKT) - DD on an Undervalued Gem!
This is my first DD post on any company, be gentle. Disclaimer: I am long RKT. This is not financial advice, and I am not receiving any compensation whatsoever from anyone for this post. I’m not a professional, I’m not even an amateur, this is a Wendy’s. Sources used: RKT investor relations website and company website, RKT earnings transcripts, SEC fillings, the SEC EDGAR database, sea king al pha, whalewisdom, finbox, yahoo finance, stockcharts, openinsider, Zacks, google sheets. Summary Rocket Companies (RKT) is a fintech company that operates several brands including the flagship Rocket Mortgage. I think RKT presents an opportunity to buy serious value at a cheap price, because the market has not priced in the underlying fact that RKT is a tech company akin to Square, Paypal, etc.
RKT has disrupted the lending industry and has embraced a fully digital ecosystem, which will continue to drive customer acquisition and retention in the future
RKT spends considerable money and resources on UX/UI development, client experience, and marketing. This will also help drive their continued expansion into the lending market.
The RKT “ecosystem” provides a “full cycle” solution for everything related to real estate transactions and insurance. They serve real estate professionals looking to generate leads, develop those leads, better serve their clients, and make every stage of real estate transactions smoother. From the client side, they similarly just make everything easier - it’s an app, it’s online, it’s doable from home and it’s not complicated. There’s an inherent advantage in what they’re doing here because closing on real estate transactions has always been something that’s complex, unpleasant, expensive, and not well understood. You need lawyers, you need agents, there’s a ton of paperwork, it sucks. RKT is changing all of that.
RKTs balance sheet, income, and liabilities support a stock price several times higher than the current one in my opinion.
RKT is currently stagnant in price, and the market appears to be pricing it like a traditional mortgage company, not a rapidly growing tech company (which they are).
RKT has been around for decades (skips the startup costs that will provide barrier to entry for newer companies looking to do what they’re doing), but somehow seems to still be leading the tech charge in the industry. That’s a unique and potent combination in my opinion.
RKT needs a catalyst to get the market to value it as a tech company instead of a lending company. Once that happens, and I expect it to sometime within the next year, RKT should approach an appropriate valuation such as 20x earnings. That’s an estimate I pulled out of nowhere, but is commensurate with the low end of P/E ratios for companies I see as similar to RKT.
Key Point - RKT is Priced Like a Legacy Mortgage Company The average estimate for 2020 year end revenue is $15 billion, and the yearly earnings estimate average is $3.85 per share. This estimate gives a ttm P/E ratio of just over 5.5. The sector median is something like 8-12, which makes RKT cheaply valued relative to the earnings it produces, even compared to the financial/mortgage sector. What’s key here is, I don’t think that’s really an appropriate comparison. I would place them more in line with companies like Square (ttm P/E ratio of 325x lol), PayPal (ttm P/E ratio of 69x, nice), or Fiserv (ttm P/E ratio of 24x). I used Zacks for all of these P/E ratio lookups. Let’s assume RKT is conservatively worth 15x earnings, and that it hits the estimate of $3.85 eps. That would put its fair valueright nowat $57.75 per share. I think it’s worth more than that but, we all should do well to remember that it’s really only worth whatever the market will pay for it. Key Point - Catalysts This thing needs a catalyst. Right now I am loading up. I’m buying shares, I’m selling SHORT TERM covered calls to reduce basis on those shares, but I will be stopping the sale of those covered calls within a couple weeks most likely. The Q4 earnings announcement will be on 2/25. I am not sure that the actual earnings numbers will be enough to wake this thing up, although I expect them to be good. But if that announcement comes with discussion of their focus for 2021 and beyond, and gets the market thinking about them as a tech company first and mortgage lending company second, things will start to heat up. I don’t know when the real catalyst will hit that triggers the run-up, but I think it could start with the Q4 earnings call. I am looking at $21 as the floor for this stock, and I expect the price to double within a year. I will be acquiring OTM LEAPs, expiring next spring. Supporting information and background follows. The Business RKT is in the business of providing solutions to financial transactions, including mortgage origination and refinancing, auto lending, and more. Specific subsidiaries and my simplistic view of how they interact: Home Financing
Rocket Mortgage - The mortgage company. This is a prominent “public facing” part of the Rocket ecosystem.
Amrock - Amrock provides title insurance, property valuations, and other solutions. I see this as “supporting infrastructure” to keep clients within the rocket ecosystem where they would otherwise need to go elsewhere and is part of what makes RKT a one-stop-shop.
Amrock Title Insurance (ATI) Company - basically does underwriting for Amrock. The “business end” in my simple understanding of the world.
Nexsys - provides a streamlined approach to the closing process with their Clear Sign and Clear HOI technologies - taking care of closing day authentications and sharing of homeowners insurance information.
Lendesk - Lendesk specifically provides solutions for the mortgage market in Canada
Edison Financial - Basically the “front end” of Lendesk that Canadian clients would interact with.
Home Sale and Search
Rocket Homes - Rocket Homes is a proprietary home search platform and real estate agent referral network. Basically this matches buyers, sellers, and agents, and is a key aspect of keeping clients completely working within RKT for all aspects of real estate buying/selling/financing.
For Sale By Owner - A digital marketplace designed to let clients buy and sell real estate on their own. I think it’s absolutely brilliant that RKT owns this, but more on that later.
Auto & Personal Financing
Rocket Auto - Supports rental and online car purchasing platforms.
Rocket Loans - online personal loan solutions for clients.
Media
Core Digital Media - a major advertiser in the mortgage, financial, insurance, and education sectors.
Lower My Bills - this company is basically a “portal” business model that connects people with providers of various loan and insurance products.
Services & Technology Development
Rock Connections - Basically a sales and support platform that handles appointments, prequalifications, generating leads, and data analysis among other things.
Rock Central - I will generalize this as “business support”. HR, administration, etc.
Rocket Innovation Studio - A tech incubator to gather and engage top talent and ideas.
Recent Acquisitions RKT, through Lendesk, acquired Finmo back in October of 2020 (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rocket-companies-subsidiary-acquires-fast-182042594.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALnvnNBoglSnmMP0O61AqgXBJokNS53LjJYuG3NvYKhayp4I6ZH2RpfmFUbSsCAU4xmnBNGMTwiEG-Ly29EabVy1-OjPIGfkYoQ3389gn3Edebs9sIwWOy1tPzqjRwOwwGA_PWg0cNzEFCe7HBTilMwADUT_y0QxWw8vizWecGcv) Finmo is a rapidly growing Canadian digital mortgage platform and this acquisition I think was perfect - it shows RKTs dedication to embracing a fully digital experience, and making sure they’re the ones leading that charge. Management I do not have much to say here, aside from this. The RKT team is not the new kids on the block, they have decades of industry experience. Also, I value leaders that make people feel valued. And on that note, under CEO Jay Farner Quicken Loans has been in the top 30 of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 17 consecutive years. Financials and Growth When it comes to the numbers, RKT is killing it. I don’t want to just spout a bunch of numbers that anyone can easily go look up so here’s a couple that stood out to me from the Q3 earnings announcement and related data: $4.63 billion in revenue, which is 163% YoY growth. From that revenue, they beat EPS estimates with $1.21 for the quarter vs $1.09 expected. Net income was $2.4 billion which represents a YoY growth of 365%. Closed loan volume YoY growth was 122% to $89B. Net rate lock volume was $94.7 Billion (101% growth). RKT has brought in $13.1 billion in revenue in the first 3 quarters and seems to be on track to close out Q4 with yearly revs above $15 billion. That’s awesome but what I really like is that they pair this amazing growth with $3.5B cash on hand. That’s great because I want them to be able to scale as they grow, and make acquisitions as needed (see Finmo) to ensure they can keep that growth going without getting overextended and failing to capitalize. RKTs ability to recapture clients is one of the keys to their future success in my uneducated opinion. Their recapture rate is 4.6x the industry average. The Q3 earnings transcript includes a statement by the CEO on how when interest rates fall, retention rate falls, refinance activity is larger. The high recapture rate RKT has serves as a natural hedge to their retention of existing clients because their recapture is so much higher than average in the industry. Quick aside - RKT announced a $1 billion share buyback program. They’ll be able to repurchase shares from time to time starting Nov10 2020, ending in two years. I don’t love the idea of share buybacks because I think this can be detrimental to actual business growth for the sake of shareholder value. However, with the large cash position RKT has (and it doubled from December 2019 to September 2020) I think this is a reasonable way to deploy some of that cash for now. Ok so what about valuation using DCF, free cash flow analysis, something like that? Honestly I’m not convinced this is as useful as some people make it out to be. It’s nice to know what the numbers indicate, but I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about an exact price target based on anything like this. That said, you can crunch the numbers yourself or check out something like the Finbox resources: https://finbox.com/NYSE:RKT/models/dcf-growth-exit-5yr I don’t believe that fair value estimate for an instant, but it's a part of the puzzle to consider. Finbox has various models you can check out, but it’s also just a nice place to view aggregate data other than directly from the SEC filings. Product Channels RKTs direct-to-consumer channel is their main source of revenue right now, but I think they will be successful in their efforts to grow their partner channels as well. Why do I say that? Numbers don’t lie:
Adjusted Revenue for Partner Network is up 502% YTD vs 2019 ( see Q3 earnings transcript)
The partner network volume is a little over half of the direct-to-consumer volume but the growth rate is just so damn juicy. That revenue growth is hellathicc. Current Market and outlook Right now, rates are low. The average 30-yr mortgage fixed rate is 2.92% (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/mortgage-refinancing-surges-but-high-home-prices-stop-buyers.html) I cannot say how long interest rates will remain low but I believe RKT is positioned to continue to grow regardless of what rates do moving forward. They just cover so much of the space, and they do it with a focus on applied technology. Here’s some blatant speculation. I think as we move into 2021 and the vaccine becomes more prevalent, millennials will buy, sell, and borrow against real estate with renewed intensity. I think RKT is uniquely positioned to capture that market. Positions: RKT shares. Cost basis of $21.14.
How I turned $1k into 300k in 2017's bull market (very long).
First, English is my second language so please forgive my poorly organized, horribly formatted and super long story. Also I never shared this story before and wasn't really planning to, but I told it to one of my now close friend who is a crypto nerd like me and he said it was inspiring and that I should share it so here goes. It's 2014 I am working a minimum wage job at a labels factory, I boxed the finished labels. 6 months later, I am promoted and I am head of the quality assurance department (happened super fast and everyone was amazed that it happened including myself :P ). I got a raise and life was good.One day the owner decided to hire a "team leader" basically a tier 2 boss. An authoritarian racist c*nt that hates my guts. We get in an argument, I turn my back on him and walk away and he ends up physically assaulting me for it. I threaten to sue and they fire me because of it. I complain to the EEOC, because I can't afford a lawsuit. We mediate and like an idiot I settled for 5k they offered me. I Payed my lawyer $400, Bought us a new furnace because ours was old and had broke down. I replace the kitchen sink, paint the house and did some other minor repairs. All said and done, and after working for nearly 2 years at that company I am unemployed, depressed and have nothing to show for it, Well except for a $1000 I have left from the settlement that I wanted to preserve and invest in something instead of spending it. I spend a couple month of freelancing and hustling trying to find a new source of income. And one day I am on some random forum trying to find a solution to a problem I have with my code (I have 13+ years of programming experience C++, C#, Asm and reverse engineering) I read the word Bitcoin for the first time ever. And the person talking about it made it sound like it's the next big thing and that it's going to do wonders for apps and payment systems. Other replies to that same post were talking about how it will make them all rich. I got curious, And on September, 2015, I google Bitcoin for the first time ever and I end up on Coinbase. I bought $5 worth of Bitcoin for shit's and giggles. Forgot about it for ~3 months. Then came back and sold it in October for $5.10. So I made 10 cents profit after coinbase's outrageous fees. And I thought to myself, This is great, I just made 2% with minimal effort. Greed kicked in and I started my quest to learn as much as I can about BTC. For the skeptics: https://preview.redd.it/jrz4ptp5z4b61.png?width=797&format=png&auto=webp&s=d91bfe7e49827ba274cfbb9fca57dc419bdd9e2f Edit: More proof for those that think I am a lair, full of shit and made all this up: LTC trades since 2017 https://preview.redd.it/znrn5tgmp6b61.png?width=2698&format=png&auto=webp&s=9132a624df041e57060b163e31e5cc5747875e0f 2015 trades are no imported from the coinbase account in this SS Next thing I know I am on Coinbase Pro (Gdax at the time) and was instantly hypnotized by the insane volatility and price swings. I immediately start buying and selling, Without any knowledge about trading whatsoever. I made some money then then lost more than I made and now I have ~$820 left and I realized I am not going to beat the market like this. My orders were being front ran by bots (didn't know they were bots at the time) because they keep burying my limit orders whenever I post them and I don't get filled. Also fees for market orders were exceeding my profit so I end up losing instead of making money. Thinking like a programmer (a problem solver really) I thought to myself there has to be a way for me to do the front running. I do some googling. Learn about the exchange API. I fired up Visual Studio, downloaded some files/libraries and spent a few weeks creating a prototype that would speed things up and give me an edge. At first I used C# and it looked like crap but it performed well, And with the ability to place orders as fast as possible (and free limit orders). My balance started growing. Slowly but surely I kept improving the prototype over the years and it evolved into a fully functional trading platform. I eventually used Directx to recreate the order books locally (this part happened much later 2019-ish) because the exchange kept freezing and crashing when I needed it the most and low and behold, I had out done myself and created a fine trading platform Here is the post were I first showed it to the world. Here is a video of it in action too: https://streamable.com/3jl30l One click insta buy/sell and everything was pre-calculated for me. All I had to do was pre-set the # of lots I wish to flip in each trade and click either the buy or sell buttons. Within a few weeks of the first prototype I was up from $800 to 8k scalping BTC's volatile market and I was ecstatic, I was over the moon, pun intended. However, The market was slowing down and it is now boring and I am not making any $$ and I was never happy that I could only trade BTC and LTC on Coinbase and was scared to trade anywhere else for fear of losing my money with all the hacks and scams that were happening almost everyday. But then I learn about a coin called Lisk. And the Lisk zealots managed to convert me and I end up joining them and opened a Bittrex account lol. By now I had spent 3k in life expenses and I have 5k left so I move it to Bittrex, And add Bittrex to my trading platform and go all in on Lisk at $3. I was convinced it is going to the moon and will make me rich. I go to my wife and beg her to borrow some money from her dad for me or max out a credit card or whatever the fuck she can do to get me a few more thousand dollars so that I could add more to my LSK position because I have no credit score history and no one would lend me, She was terrified and refused to help me. I didn't get a single dime. (Hindsight, I am glad she didn't :P) So there I was, Angry at my wife (I was wrong I know) determined to prove her wrong and show her that this will work and that I am not going to lose so I am trading like a degenerate gambler with my entire stack. Looking like a zombi from malnutrition and lack of sleep, But I pull through and grow that 5k into ~24k within roughly 1.5 months. Phew, I DID IT, I shout. looking at my wife. I FUCKING DID IT. I TOLD I CAN DO IT but you never believed in me. And my head grew bigger and bigger to the point were it wouldn't fit through the door any more. Meanwhile LTC is pumping like a mother fucker but I had no idea because I am not paying attention to anything else but my cash cow LISK. Now that LISK is slowing down (Re-branding delayed) and hype was dead. I sell it all. Transfer the cash back to Gdax and join the LTC frenzy. By now it's December 2017, And shit was Insane, It was lit, Everything was on steroids and $ signs everywhere. I was going all in on every trade (Spot trading) and with every trade and my account kept growing. First it was growing hundreds, Then LTC went parabolic and it was thousands of $$ with every click of the mouse. Every click of the buy/sell buttons I made or lost a few thousand $$. Never holding on to a position loser or winner. I catch the wicks (which were huge) and would flip it in seconds just to go back to fiat for fear of getting whipsawed and losing it all. By now I had grown my 24k into 100k within like 3 days at the markets peak (LTC at like $150+). The joy I felt, The happiness, The pride :) I was victorious and those 3 days were like a crazy epic dream. So now I am gloating and teasing my wife telling her how I did it all by myself and shit and thanking her for all the help she didn't offer. meanwhile, LTC is still pumping like crazy. But I was content, I had just broken the 100k mark and was ready to celebrate. but of-course life is never sunshine and rainbows. To my dismay, My wife asks. What about TAXES? I am like what taxes? I already payed the fees! (I am a foreigner so i knew nothing about taxes in the US of A) She said you have to pay capital gain taxes on this, It's like 30%. My face turned pale and my heart skipped a beat, I jump out of bed, go online and research capital gain taxes. And I realized she was right, I am going to end up paying at least 25% to 32% of my money in taxes. I felt like I wanted to cry and all the joy and happiness I had felt was gone (Hindsight I should have been happy even after taxes :P). But I decided to push forward and make the 32% that I have to pay in taxes to get to the 100k mark after taxes while the market is hot. so I cancelled the moon party and went back upstairs, Started the computer and started trading again. So now I am back at it, Still killing it making more and more money. This continues for a day or 2 more and by the time the crypto party was over and when LTC started the big crash from $400 to $150 I was all back in cash and I had made a grand total of 310k+ and 105k+ trades in about 6 months, Most trades were made in Dec 2017 and Jan 2018 on BTC, LTC and LSK combined. I at first protested paying taxes for weeks, No for months, because it seemed unfair to me. But the April 15th deadline drew ever closer. And our CPA scared me str8 telling me about all the fees and fines I would have to pay if I delay paying the IRS so I reluctantly agreed and paid all of my taxes to uncle Sam. It was a massive chunk of money to give away all at once and it made me sick to the stomach. And that my friends is the long-short version of the story of how I turned a $1000 into $300k. I hope to one day be able to tell a story of how I turned whatever I have left of the 300k now into a million $ or even better into a multi million dollar fortune :) I know some people did like 1000x better than me, But for my story, I am proud of what I had achieved so far and I thought it would be cool to share the story and to hear other peoples success stories. I still am still doing great in this bull market and trading crypto has been my full time job ever since I got fired from my job at the labels factory. I have grown a lot since. btw I thought about sending the owner of the factory that fired me a letter thanking him for firing me because it was the best thing that ever happened to me but I never did :P If you have made it this far. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, And wish you and everyone else the best of luck and riches beyond your wildest dreams. TL;DR: I turned a $1000 I got from a EEOC settlement into $300k+ scalping LSK and LTC back in 2017 bull market. Leave a downvote and a "delete" comment if you think I should delete this :)
Disclaimer: I am long RKT. This is not financial advice, and I am not receiving any compensation whatsoever from anyone for this post. I’m not a professional, I’m not even an amateur, this is a Wendy’s. Sources used: RKT investor relations website and company website, RKT earnings transcripts, SEC fillings, the SEC EDGAR database, sea king al pha, whalewisdom, finbox, yahoo finance, stockcharts, openinsider, Zacks, google sheets. Summary Rocket Companies (RKT) is a fintech company that operates several brands including the flagship Rocket Mortgage. I think RKT presents an opportunity to buy serious value at a cheap price, because the market has not priced in the underlying fact that RKT is a tech company akin to Square, Paypal, etc.
RKT has disrupted the lending industry and has embraced a fully digital ecosystem, which will continue to drive customer acquisition and retention in the future
RKT spends considerable money and resources on UX/UI development, client experience, and marketing. This will also help drive their continued expansion into the lending market.
The RKT “ecosystem” provides a “full cycle” solution for everything related to real estate transactions and insurance. They serve real estate professionals looking to generate leads, develop those leads, better serve their clients, and make every stage of real estate transactions smoother. From the client side, they similarly just make everything easier - it’s an app, it’s online, it’s doable from home and it’s not complicated. There’s an inherent advantage in what they’re doing here because closing on real estate transactions has always been something that’s complex, unpleasant, expensive, and not well understood. You need lawyers, you need agents, there’s a ton of paperwork, it sucks. RKT is changing all of that.
RKTs balance sheet, income, and liabilities support a stock price several times higher than the current one in my opinion.
RKT is currently stagnant in price, and the market appears to be pricing it like a traditional mortgage company, not a rapidly growing tech company (which they are).
RKT has been around for decades (skips the startup costs that will provide barrier to entry for newer companies looking to do what they’re doing), but somehow seems to still be leading the tech charge in the industry. That’s a unique and potent combination in my opinion.
RKT needs a catalyst to get the market to value it as a tech company instead of a lending company. Once that happens, and I expect it to sometime within the next year, RKT should approach an appropriate valuation such as 20x earnings. That’s an estimate I pulled out of nowhere, but is commensurate with the low end of P/E ratios for companies I see as similar to RKT.
Key Point - RKT is Priced Like a Legacy Mortgage Company The average estimate for 2020 year end revenue is $15 billion, and the yearly earnings estimate average is $3.85 per share. This estimate gives a forward-looking P/E ratio of just over 5.5. The sector median is something like 8-12, which makes RKT cheaply valued relative to the earnings it produces, even compared to the financial/mortgage sector. What’s key here is, I don’t think that’s really an appropriate comparison. I would place them more in line with companies like Square (ttm P/E ratio of 325x lol), PayPal (ttm P/E ratio of 69x, nice), or Fiserv (ttm P/E ratio of 24x). I used Zacks for all of these P/E ratio lookups. Let’s assume RKT is conservatively worth 15x earnings, and that it hits the estimate of $3.85 eps. That would put its fair valueright nowat $57.75 per share. I think it’s worth more than that but, we all should do well to remember that it’s really only worth whatever the market will pay for it. Key Point - Catalysts This thing needs a catalyst. Right now I am loading up. I’m buying shares, I’m selling SHORT TERM covered calls to reduce basis on those shares, but I will be stopping the sale of those covered calls within a couple weeks most likely. The Q4 earnings announcement will be on 2/25. I am not sure that the actual earnings numbers will be enough to wake this thing up, although I expect them to be good. But if that announcement comes with discussion of their focus for 2021 and beyond, and gets the market thinking about them as a tech company first and mortgage lending company second, things will start to heat up. I don’t know when the real catalyst will hit that triggers the run-up, but I think it could start with the Q4 earnings call. I am looking at $21 as the floor for this stock, and I expect the price to double within a year. I will be acquiring OTM LEAPs, expiring next spring. Supporting information and background follows. The Business RKT is in the business of providing solutions to financial transactions, including mortgage origination and refinancing, auto lending, and more. Specific subsidiaries and my simplistic view of how they interact: Home Financing
Rocket Mortgage - The mortgage company. This is a prominent “public facing” part of the Rocket ecosystem.
Amrock - Amrock provides title insurance, property valuations, and other solutions. I see this as “supporting infrastructure” to keep clients within the rocket ecosystem where they would otherwise need to go elsewhere and is part of what makes RKT a one-stop-shop.
Amrock Title Insurance (ATI) Company - basically does underwriting for Amrock. The “business end” in my simple understanding of the world.
Nexsys - provides a streamlined approach to the closing process with their Clear Sign and Clear HOI technologies - taking care of closing day authentications and sharing of homeowners insurance information.
Lendesk - Lendesk specifically provides solutions for the mortgage market in Canada
Edison Financial - Basically the “front end” of Lendesk that Canadian clients would interact with.
Home Sale and Search
Rocket Homes - Rocket Homes is a proprietary home search platform and real estate agent referral network. Basically this matches buyers, sellers, and agents, and is a key aspect of keeping clients completely working within RKT for all aspects of real estate buying/selling/financing.
For Sale By Owner - A digital marketplace designed to let clients buy and sell real estate on their own. I think it’s absolutely brilliant that RKT owns this, but more on that later.
Auto & Personal Financing
Rocket Auto - Supports rental and online car purchasing platforms.
Rocket Loans - online personal loan solutions for clients.
Media
Core Digital Media - a major advertiser in the mortgage, financial, insurance, and education sectors.
Lower My Bills - this company is basically a “portal” business model that connects people with providers of various loan and insurance products.
Services & Technology Development
Rock Connections - Basically a sales and support platform that handles appointments, prequalifications, generating leads, and data analysis among other things.
Rock Central - I will generalize this as “business support”. HR, administration, etc.
Rocket Innovation Studio - A tech incubator to gather and engage top talent and ideas.
Recent Acquisitions RKT, through Lendesk, acquired Finmo back in October of 2020 (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rocket-companies-subsidiary-acquires-fast-182042594.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALnvnNBoglSnmMP0O61AqgXBJokNS53LjJYuG3NvYKhayp4I6ZH2RpfmFUbSsCAU4xmnBNGMTwiEG-Ly29EabVy1-OjPIGfkYoQ3389gn3Edebs9sIwWOy1tPzqjRwOwwGA_PWg0cNzEFCe7HBTilMwADUT_y0QxWw8vizWecGcv) Finmo is a rapidly growing Canadian digital mortgage platform and this acquisition I think was perfect - it shows RKTs dedication to embracing a fully digital experience, and making sure they’re the ones leading that charge. Management I do not have much to say here, aside from this. The RKT team is not the new kids on the block, they have decades of industry experience. Also, I value leaders that make people feel valued. And on that note, under CEO Jay Farner Quicken Loans has been in the top 30 of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 17 consecutive years. Financials and Growth When it comes to the numbers, RKT is killing it. I don’t want to just spout a bunch of numbers that anyone can easily go look up so here’s a couple that stood out to me from the Q3 earnings announcement and related data: $4.63 billion in revenue, which is 163% YoY growth. From that revenue, they beat EPS estimates with $1.21 for the quarter vs $1.09 expected. Net income was $2.4 billion which represents a YoY growth of 365%. Closed loan volume YoY growth was 122% to $89B. Net rate lock volume was $94.7 Billion (101% growth). RKT has brought in $13.1 billion in revenue in the first 3 quarters and seems to be on track to close out Q4 with yearly revs above $15 billion. That’s awesome but what I really like is that they pair this amazing growth with $3.5B cash on hand. That’s great because I want them to be able to scale as they grow, and make acquisitions as needed (see Finmo) to ensure they can keep that growth going without getting overextended and failing to capitalize. RKTs ability to recapture clients is one of the keys to their future success in my uneducated opinion. Their recapture rate is 4.6x the industry average. The Q3 earnings transcript includes a statement by the CEO on how when interest rates fall, retention rate falls, refinance activity is larger. The high recapture rate RKT has serves as a natural hedge to their retention of existing clients because their recapture is so much higher than average in the industry. Quick aside - RKT announced a $1 billion share buyback program. They’ll be able to repurchase shares from time to time starting Nov10 2020, ending in two years. I don’t love the idea of share buybacks because I think this can be detrimental to actual business growth for the sake of shareholder value. However, with the large cash position RKT has (and it doubled from December 2019 to September 2020) I think this is a reasonable way to deploy some of that cash for now. Ok so what about valuation using DCF, free cash flow analysis, something like that? Honestly I’m not convinced this is as useful as some people make it out to be. It’s nice to know what the numbers indicate, but I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about an exact price target based on anything like this. That said, you can crunch the numbers yourself or check out something like the Finbox resources: https://finbox.com/NYSE:RKT/models/dcf-growth-exit-5yr I don’t believe that fair value estimate for an instant, but it's a part of the puzzle to consider. Finbox has various models you can check out, but it’s also just a nice place to view aggregate data other than directly from the SEC filings. Product Channels RKTs direct-to-consumer channel is their main source of revenue right now, but I think they will be successful in their efforts to grow their partner channels as well. Why do I say that? Numbers don’t lie:
Adjusted Revenue for Partner Network is up 502% YTD vs 2019 ( see Q3 earnings transcript)
The partner network volume is a little over half of the direct-to-consumer volume but the growth rate is just so damn juicy. That revenue growth is hellathicc. Current Market and outlook Right now, rates are low. The average 30-yr mortgage fixed rate is 2.92% (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/mortgage-refinancing-surges-but-high-home-prices-stop-buyers.html) I cannot say how long interest rates will remain low but I believe RKT is positioned to continue to grow regardless of what rates do moving forward. They just cover so much of the space, and they do it with a focus on applied technology. Here’s some blatant speculation. I think as we move into 2021 and the vaccine becomes more prevalent, millennials will buy, sell, and borrow against real estate with renewed intensity. I think RKT is uniquely positioned to capture that market. Positions: RKT shares. Cost basis of $21.14.
I am 32/Canadian and had a very high paying career that had a short shelf life. During my high producing years I wanted to move out of Canada to another country where I could save as much as I could for my future because I knew my income would not last forever. "Abroad" was a weird term form me. Despite being Canadian and having lived most of my adult years in Canada I felt like everywhere was abroad for me. I was born in one of the poorest countries of Europe and lived there until I was 17 years old. The country has come a long way today but when I go back I never fit in. I definitely feel more connected with Canada than the country I was born in. I think a big reason why I focused so hard on work was to never get back to the level of poverty I grew up as a child. Think of North Korea and Venezuela in one combo. In 1997 there was a complete lock down due to civil war and my family was lucky enough to survive because we had a vegetable garden and chickens. If you left your home you could be shot/robbed or worse be killed from stepping on a mine. The city was covered in them. The other reason was that women got treated like second class citizens where I was born and my childhood was a living hell where I wasn't even allowed to walk on the street alone (even after they took out the mines), talk to members of the opposite sex or have any friends. Dating was not a concept and if they know you are "dating" you have to immediately get engaged and then married and have children or else you are a "whore". I always had a bubbly personality when I was young, I liked to act, dance, and really liked learning. I was also interested in entrepreneurship and got a full scholarship at York University to study business but to my parents a woman is not suited for business and they pushed me to study molecular biology instead. I hated my University years. I battled depression and never really saw a future for myself with biology. I ran away from home at 19 and asked my local university what help was there for someone like me that wanted to start a business. To my surprise they were very helpful and told me about grants and loans I could apply to get started. My first business was face painting and entertainment for children's birthday parties and events. I remember I got a $5000 loan and it seemed like so much money at the time. It helped me buy my first car and get started. I grew my business from just me to having 10 employees, having permanent booths in theme parks and festivals in Canada. It was hard work but I loved it. During the time I was still in university and most of my work was summeweekends so it worked out ok. I remember I was growing more and more fed up with my studies and walked out of my last exam with a smile feeling absolute freedom. I never finished my degree and I was so ok with it even if I was one exam away from graduation. I didn't care about the crazy amounts of student loans I had accumulated. All I wanted was to grow my business and make money. It gave me that thrill that sitting in a lab using a microscope never did. One day I became curious about online streaming and after having a few drinks with a friend I made an application on a popular site (at the time). The site was more like webcamming but you were allowed to do whatever you wanted on cam as long as there was no guys. I didn't think much of it because I was doing well with my other business. At the time I had a rocky relationship with an ex bf and decided maybe going online and flirting with men would make me feel better about my break up. Then saw this email about the site I had previously applied had accepted my application. I did my first stream completely clothed, having fun and chatting with people. I made $4.00 usd which was shit but I had so much fun doing it so I started researching the industry more. After a few more streams I decided this had a potential to be something big and I decided to make a business plan and focus on it entirely. I was constantly doing 10-12h on cam and loved to come up with new creative ideas to entertain people. I went from making $4.00 my first day to making just shy off a million dollars a year. The money was not the focus but being the best at what I did was. During my high earning years I knew I had to save and plan for my future. Most of the other performers would have one good month making $150,000 then disappear and not be relevant again. I don't know how I managed to last in the industry for over 8 years, but I am greatful that my hard work was combined with luck and being at the right place/right time. I moved to Mexico when I was 26 years old. My life in Mexico was great the first two years. I was dating someone that was super supportive with my work schedule. It was the honeymoon phase. We would always eat out and enjoy nice places and expensive travel. I was always frugal with everything else but vacations and experiences. Looking back my mistake was that I paid for everything and my bf at the time felt used to this cushy life that ended up expecting it. He was bad with managing money too and had a lot of debt which stupiditly I ended up paying off. During this time I had bought various income properties in central Mexico (in a retirement village) and the agreement was that since I was making more money with my online business which required long hours on cam, my ex was supposed to take care of property management. At first he was engaged then ended up not so pationate about it. I felt used and underappreciated. When I realized all this I was pregnant with our child. He told me he was unhappy living in a retirement village and wanted to move to a bigger city in Mexico. I told him we could try it out because it would offer more opportunities for our child as well. That's where things went downhill. He constantly ignored me and refused to help with chores in the house. I had a high risk pregnacy so I couldn't do much myself either. After a few months he ended up cheating and experienced a mental break down, trying to commit suicide. I was crushed. I didn't know what happened and despite my efforts to send him to get the best medical help in the country he never was the same. I really wanted to help him get back on his feet again because I thought we were a team for life. I was wrong. He ended up leaving the country one day when my son was only a few months old and has not been back in over 3 years. I have never heard back from him and I don't know if he's dead or alive. I was crushed and myself experienced a complete burn out from work/personal loss at the time. Physically I became ill too and dropped down up 42 kg. I knew I had to do something about it because I had a son to take care of. Looking back at it now it was an amazing opportunity for me to realize there was more to life than work. It helped me realize that I should have not provided everything just because I loved someone but let them provide and create on their own. If they refused I had to know they were using me as a wallet and to not get involved. RETIREMENT It's been one full year since I have been completely off work. It happened in 2020 out of all years. Before I tried to work on and off but my love for my job wasn't the same. I can say I feel much less stressed than I did years ago. My health is better and my sleep schedule is so much better than it was before. For the first time I now feel more Integrated in Mexico and I don't think I am missing out much not living in Canada. Where I live it's safe, it has a high quality of life and there's a lot of international business around. Not that I want to open a new business here but I think it's important to be surrounded by other people that have seen more of the world and are also successful. On top of that I have always felt like a hybrid of many cultures and being surrounded by people that have moved around the world means that we get to be hybrids together and they understand me better than say someone that lived in Canada/USA all their lives and never left the country. Mexico has many bad things as well but no county is perfect. Choosing the right location to live in Mexico is very important to not be affected a lot by the bad things. The pace of life is also much more calmer than in Canada and the US. This can be bad if you want to start a business here but it's a good place to be during retirement. Also people are a lot less "offended" from things and I find it's easier to make friends than it was in Canada. My general perception of Canada was that people in Canada are very helpful to strangers but much colder if you want to have a meaningful friendship. Of course there are exceptions but that was my experience. One thing I did not like about the western culture is the victim mentality that the youth of today are embracing. If they can't get something they usually blame the government for not doing enough for them. Some women blame men for "the patriarchy" and some Canadians blame foreigners because 'they took away their cheap homes and they can't afford real estate' Having lived in a real "shit hole" country where women get treated like crap I want to remind you that Canada and the US are the land of opportunities compared to most of the world. Success is not guaranteed for anyone but all the information is free in English for you to look up and use it to your advantage. You don't even have to learn a second language to access it. Being a woman or a minority gives you the same legal rights as everyone else if not more sometimes. I don't think most western feminists know what it's like to live in a muslim country. My point is: Westerners are not grateful enough for what they have. Complaining is human nature so of course it happens in Mexico but the majority know that their government won't do shit for them and they focus on what they can do as an individual. This can be bad too wich is reflected in the general sentiment Mexicans have for public property but that's another problem I won't get into. Overall i am happy where I have come in my journey. I know I haven't got it all figured out despite having a 4.5 million net worth I don't feel complete being 100% retired. I am currently building real estate in Mexico, investing in stocks and excercising to keep me busy. After things open up I will travel more but the urge to have everything figured out which I experienced immediately once I stopped working is less. Also: It's lonely at the top: I like to think of myself as an easy and approachable person, however I think having a different upbringing and dedicating and reaching high levels of financial success at a very young age, makes relating to most people not as easy. I think humans form stronger bonds when they share and solve similar problems together. That's why I lurk in this forum from time to time. It makes me realize at the end of the day I'm not alone. A lot of the questions that get asked here on a daily basis are questions that I ask myself all the time. The funny part is that no one has the answers, I don't either and the more I live the more I realize that the answers don't matter. The only realisation I have so far is: The key to being rich is living in the moment, enjoying the company of your loved ones and being greatful for what you have. Don't let your brain trick you into overthinking and stay away from the compulsion to use fatFIRE calculators all the time. Just get out for a walk instead and leave your phone at home. We could be hit by a car tomorrow and none of that shit matters as much as you think. Edit: since many have asked the country was Albania. I responded here how I ended up in Canada: https://www.reddit.com/fatFIRE/comments/lh30x8/my_expat_fatfire_journey_abroad_long/gmwn401?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share&context=3
By petriefly42 This is my first DD post on any company, be gentle. Disclaimer: I am long RKT. This is not financial advice, and I am not receiving any compensation whatsoever from anyone for this post. I’m not a professional, I’m not even an amateur, this is a Wendy’s. Sources used: RKT investor relations website and company website, RKT earnings transcripts, SEC fillings, the SEC EDGAR database, sea king al pha, whalewisdom, finbox, yahoo finance, stockcharts, openinsider, Zacks, google sheets. Summary Rocket Companies (RKT) is a fintech company that operates several brands including the flagship Rocket Mortgage. I think RKT presents an opportunity to buy serious value at a cheap price, because the market has not priced in the underlying fact that RKT is a tech company akin to Square, Paypal, etc. RKT has disrupted the lending industry and has embraced a fully digital ecosystem, which will continue to drive customer acquisition and retention in the future RKT spends considerable money and resources on UX/UI development, client experience, and marketing. This will also help drive their continued expansion into the lending market. The RKT “ecosystem” provides a “full cycle” solution for everything related to real estate transactions and insurance. They serve real estate professionals looking to generate leads, develop those leads, better serve their clients, and make every stage of real estate transactions smoother. From the client side, they similarly just make everything easier - it’s an app, it’s online, it’s doable from home and it’s not complicated. There’s an inherent advantage in what they’re doing here because closing on real estate transactions has always been something that’s complex, unpleasant, expensive, and not well understood. You need lawyers, you need agents, there’s a ton of paperwork, it sucks. RKT is changing all of that. RKTs balance sheet, income, and liabilities support a stock price several times higher than the current one in my opinion. RKT is currently stagnant in price, and the market appears to be pricing it like a traditional mortgage company, not a rapidly growing tech company (which they are). RKT has been around for decades (skips the startup costs that will provide barrier to entry for newer companies looking to do what they’re doing), but somehow seems to still be leading the tech charge in the industry. That’s a unique and potent combination in my opinion. RKT needs a catalyst to get the market to value it as a tech company instead of a lending company. Once that happens, and I expect it to sometime within the next year, RKT should approach an appropriate valuation such as 20x earnings. That’s an estimate I pulled out of nowhere, but is commensurate with the low end of P/E ratios for companies I see as similar to RKT. Key Point - RKT is Priced Like a Legacy Mortgage Company The average estimate for 2020 year end revenue is $15 billion, and the yearly earnings estimate average is $3.85 per share. This estimate gives a ttm P/E ratio of just over 5.5. The sector median is something like 8-12, which makes RKT cheaply valued relative to the earnings it produces, even compared to the financial/mortgage sector. What’s key here is, I don’t think that’s really an appropriate comparison. I would place them more in line with companies like Square (ttm P/E ratio of 325x lol), PayPal (ttm P/E ratio of 69x, nice), or Fiserv (ttm P/E ratio of 24x). I used Zacks for all of these P/E ratio lookups. Let’s assume RKT is conservatively worth 15x earnings, and that it hits the estimate of $3.85 eps. That would put its fair value right now at $57.75 per share. I think it’s worth more than that but, we all should do well to remember that it’s really only worth whatever the market will pay for it. Key Point - Catalysts This thing needs a catalyst. Right now I am loading up. I’m buying shares, I’m selling SHORT TERM covered calls to reduce basis on those shares, but I will be stopping the sale of those covered calls within a couple weeks most likely. The Q4 earnings announcement will be on 2/25. I am not sure that the actual earnings numbers will be enough to wake this thing up, although I expect them to be good. But if that announcement comes with discussion of their focus for 2021 and beyond, and gets the market thinking about them as a tech company first and mortgage lending company second, things will start to heat up. I don’t know when the real catalyst will hit that triggers the run-up, but I think it could start with the Q4 earnings call. I am looking at $21 as the floor for this stock, and I expect the price to double within a year. I will be acquiring OTM LEAPs, expiring next spring. Supporting information and background follows. The Business RKT is in the business of providing solutions to financial transactions, including mortgage origination and refinancing, auto lending, and more. Specific subsidiaries and my simplistic view of how they interact: Home Financing Rocket Mortgage - The mortgage company. This is a prominent “public facing” part of the Rocket ecosystem. Amrock - Amrock provides title insurance, property valuations, and other solutions. I see this as “supporting infrastructure” to keep clients within the rocket ecosystem where they would otherwise need to go elsewhere and is part of what makes RKT a one-stop-shop. Amrock Title Insurance (ATI) Company - basically does underwriting for Amrock. The “business end” in my simple understanding of the world. Nexsys - provides a streamlined approach to the closing process with their Clear Sign and Clear HOI technologies - taking care of closing day authentications and sharing of homeowners insurance information. Lendesk - Lendesk specifically provides solutions for the mortgage market in Canada Edison Financial - Basically the “front end” of Lendesk that Canadian clients would interact with. Home Sale and Search Rocket Homes - Rocket Homes is a proprietary home search platform and real estate agent referral network. Basically this matches buyers, sellers, and agents, and is a key aspect of keeping clients completely working within RKT for all aspects of real estate buying/selling/financing. For Sale By Owner - A digital marketplace designed to let clients buy and sell real estate on their own. I think it’s absolutely brilliant that RKT owns this, but more on that later. Auto & Personal Financing Rocket Auto - Supports rental and online car purchasing platforms. Rocket Loans - online personal loan solutions for clients. Media Core Digital Media - a major advertiser in the mortgage, financial, insurance, and education sectors. Lower My Bills - this company is basically a “portal” business model that connects people with providers of various loan and insurance products. Services & Technology Development Rock Connections - Basically a sales and support platform that handles appointments, prequalifications, generating leads, and data analysis among other things. Rock Central - I will generalize this as “business support”. HR, administration, etc. Rocket Innovation Studio - A tech incubator to gather and engage top talent and ideas. Recent Acquisitions RKT, through Lendesk, acquired Finmo back in October of 2020 (https://finance.yahoo.com/news/rocket-companies-subsidiary-acquires-fast-182042594.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALnvnNBoglSnmMP0O61AqgXBJokNS53LjJYuG3NvYKhayp4I6ZH2RpfmFUbSsCAU4xmnBNGMTwiEG-Ly29EabVy1-OjPIGfkYoQ3389gn3Edebs9sIwWOy1tPzqjRwOwwGA_PWg0cNzEFCe7HBTilMwADUT_y0QxWw8vizWecGcv) Finmo is a rapidly growing Canadian digital mortgage platform and this acquisition I think was perfect - it shows RKTs dedication to embracing a fully digital experience, and making sure they’re the ones leading that charge. Management I do not have much to say here, aside from this. The RKT team is not the new kids on the block, they have decades of industry experience. Also, I value leaders that make people feel valued. And on that note, under CEO Jay Farner Quicken Loans has been in the top 30 of Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” list for 17 consecutive years. Financials and Growth When it comes to the numbers, RKT is killing it. I don’t want to just spout a bunch of numbers that anyone can easily go look up so here’s a couple that stood out to me from the Q3 earnings announcement and related data: $4.63 billion in revenue, which is 163% YoY growth. From that revenue, they beat EPS estimates with $1.21 for the quarter vs $1.09 expected. Net income was $2.4 billion which represents a YoY growth of 365%. Closed loan volume YoY growth was 122% to $89B. Net rate lock volume was $94.7 Billion (101% growth). RKT has brought in $13.1 billion in revenue in the first 3 quarters and seems to be on track to close out Q4 with yearly revs above $15 billion. That’s awesome but what I really like is that they pair this amazing growth with $3.5B cash on hand. That’s great because I want them to be able to scale as they grow, and make acquisitions as needed (see Finmo) to ensure they can keep that growth going without getting overextended and failing to capitalize. RKTs ability to recapture clients is one of the keys to their future success in my uneducated opinion. Their recapture rate is 4.6x the industry average. The Q3 earnings transcript includes a statement by the CEO on how when interest rates fall, retention rate falls, refinance activity is larger. The high recapture rate RKT has serves as a natural hedge to their retention of existing clients because their recapture is so much higher than average in the industry. Quick aside - RKT announced a $1 billion share buyback program. They’ll be able to repurchase shares from time to time starting Nov10 2020, ending in two years. I don’t love the idea of share buybacks because I think this can be detrimental to actual business growth for the sake of shareholder value. However, with the large cash position RKT has (and it doubled from December 2019 to September 2020) I think this is a reasonable way to deploy some of that cash for now. Ok so what about valuation using DCF, free cash flow analysis, something like that? Honestly I’m not convinced this is as useful as some people make it out to be. It’s nice to know what the numbers indicate, but I don’t spend a lot of time worrying about an exact price target based on anything like this. That said, you can crunch the numbers yourself or check out something like the Finbox resources: https://finbox.com/NYSE:RKT/models/dcf-growth-exit-5yr I don’t believe that fair value estimate for an instant, but it's a part of the puzzle to consider. Finbox has various models you can check out, but it’s also just a nice place to view aggregate data other than directly from the SEC filings. Product Channels RKTs direct-to-consumer channel is their main source of revenue right now, but I think they will be successful in their efforts to grow their partner channels as well. Why do I say that? Numbers don’t lie: Direct-to-consumer Q3 growth: 131% YoY ($53.5B closed loan volume) Partner Network growth 127% YoY ($29.6B closed volume) Adjusted Revenue for Partner Network is up 502% YTD vs 2019 ( see Q3 earnings transcript) The partner network volume is a little over half of the direct-to-consumer volume but the growth rate is just so damn juicy. That revenue growth is hellathicc. Current Market and outlook Right now, rates are low. The average 30-yr mortgage fixed rate is 2.92% (https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/03/mortgage-refinancing-surges-but-high-home-prices-stop-buyers.html) I cannot say how long interest rates will remain low but I believe RKT is positioned to continue to grow regardless of what rates do moving forward. They just cover so much of the space, and they do it with a focus on applied technology. Here’s some blatant speculation. I think as we move into 2021 and the vaccine becomes more prevalent, millennials will buy, sell, and borrow against real estate with renewed intensity. I think RKT is uniquely positioned to capture that market. Positions: RKT shares. Cost basis of $21.14.
"I think I've lived long enough to see competitive Counter-Strike as we know it, kill itself." Summary of Richard Lewis' stream (Long)
I want to preface that the contents of this post is for informational purposes. I do not condone or approve of any harassments or witch-hunting or the attacking of anybody.
Richard Lewis recently did a stream talking about the terrible state of CS esports and I thought it was an important stream anyone who cares about the CS community should listen to. Vod Link here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/830415547 I realize it is 3 hours long so I took it upon myself to create a list of interesting points from the stream so you don't have to listen to the whole thing, although I still encourage you to do so if you can. I know this post is still long but probably easier to digest, especially in parts. Here is a link to my raw notes if you for some reason want to read through this which includes some omitted stuff. It's in chronological order of things said in the stream and has some time stamps. https://pastebin.com/6QWTLr8T
Intro
"The last month has convinced me, that we are going to be heading into a dark place for Counter-Strike esports in 2021."
"I think I've seen the scene essentially kill itself."
"For the past 5 to 6 years, we've basically been in a holding pattern of people coming into our game wanting to run it, wanting to run all of the esports and wanting to profiteer and its been sort of a concerted effort to drive them off and push them away."
"We're spread way too thin."
"If Riot don't get involved and stop the scumbags that have moved over to Valorant from getting their feet under the table, Valorant is going to have real problems."
RL thinks too much has happened all at once for us to do anything except watch it play out, like:
Recent CSPPA strike against BLAST
ESIC failures and them not being supported enough
Teams cheating i.e. coaches/bugs
Widespread match fixing
The Pandemic
"People who try to hold bubble events are so incompetent and fuck up and people get the 'rona and its their fault."
"People who say Flashpoint is a bubble is full of shit and is a lie and people are now suffering for that lie."
"To save money they let people go home and break the bubble for a week."
"Not just Flashpoint peoples decision, they have a partner that handles the production." (hinting FACEIT)
"People are trapped in hotels essentially under house arrest because of COVID restrictions and has fucked peoples lives up."
"It's all too much, all of this incompetence, all of this greed, maybe we ride it out."
RL says he has talked to the Riot devs (the ones working on Valorant) and says, "They are so cognizant of all the fuck ups and all the problems we have in Counter-Strike."
He continues to say that this is factored into their business plan and that we never had a competitor, but just so happens to have one coincide, when we are at our worst.
CSPPA - Counter-Strike Professional Players' Association
"Who does this union really fucking serve?"
RL believes that the CSPPA is a mockery.
He points out the hypocrisy that they wouldn't strike for the pros who were kicked out of ESL Pro League, or for Jamppi or dream3r.
He also says ESL paid CSPPA and are racketeering and many other TOs have to pay them to get their "seal of approval"
He says they would strong-arm TOs saying "well if you don't give us the money, these guys are so we'll just have to commit to playing their event."
Also points out that they will strike against a competitor they are not in agreement with (Flashpoint)
RL: "It's what it says about every other time you haven't done it and it's about every time you don't do it now moving forward." "The issues they've chosen to ignore this year alone are embarrassing."
Then he points out that there was no strike for Valve qualifiers even if we have no major but Jamppi and dream3r can't play in them.
"and Valve have said 'Oh yeah we know actually their stories are accurate, Jamppi didn't cheat, now in a legally binding document. Yep dream3r did have his account hacked in a LAN café', but they still can't play. Where is the fucking solidarity? Gone. Doesn't exist. It's not important [because] it doesn't affect you." "That's what the union does right now, it looks after all the tier 1 people."
He says the CSPPA doesn't represent all players all the time and has driven a divide where you have the haves and have-nots
"We have a tier of players that operate with impunity and do not help their tier 2 or tier 3 players out at all." "If you are not a tier 1 player you do not matter, they don't event ask your opinion."
He tells chrisJ to admit and own the fact that the reason he didn't speak up during the ESL Pro League debacle is because it didn't affect him
"They are looking after some players at the expense of other players. How the fuck is that a union?"
He says the BLAST situation is a reasonable dispute and supports the players but is not the right time for a strike and have not even identified the correct enemy
He thinks players are lashing out now due to previous incidents and are upset that BLAST are working with ESIC
He stated that CSPPA shouldn't beefing with ESIC and they should be working in harmony
He says what they need to do is talk with the teams/organizations that have sold that right to BLAST
RL: "Your employers, the people who pay you that massive exorbitant salaries, when you don't stream and you don't do interviews and you offer no value beyond your ability to click heads and you get 25k dollars a month." "Why don't you talk to them about it? Oh right. You're happy to take away BLAST's paper, but you don't want to risk your own."
"I am seeing such unbelievable cowardice from the players here with the battles you choose."
"Where was the strike action when in the qualifiers for the world championship, there were teams and players engaged in huge conflicts of interest?" "Where was the strike action when your image rights were taken and sold to every league you've ever been in every union type organization you've ever been associated with like, WESA, to your org every time you sign a contract, to the leagues you play in."
"Your image rights are essentially worthless now, there's about 10 fucking separate parties that have them, and how many of them are giving you anything for it? Not much pretty much your org by the way."
"That's a big issue. Your image is you, your image is your brand. What are you doing about that? Nothing."
He is also angry at SirScoots who is "popping off" at people on Twitter who all want the same thing, which is 'A unified Counter-Strike scene for everybody, that works for everybody, that has a sustained ecosystem that nourishes everybody.' "We don't have that now."
He also says their rankings are a joke
"Just so happened, oh look TACO, that very important prominent member of the board, we pushed his team artificially up when they weren't even in the fucking top 20, not by a long shot."
He also says the ineptitude of the CSPPA cost Flashpoint a monitor sponsor
"Is it really a player association or is it like a fucking agency at this point"
ESIC - Esports Integrity Commission
"They have been put in an impossible position."
RL says that Ian Smith, the founder of ESIC and who was done work in mainstream sports, is a good and honorable man who has dedicated his life to integrity and sports. He takes on both sides, ensuring match fixers are punished, but also doing appeals and ensuring those punishments were fair.
"ESIC is a tiny organization" and are in need of money, "They didn't run a grift like the CSPPA did."
"Saying 'you want our support and you want the players to turn up you better pay us.' They don't do that."
"Had startup seed money from MTG and since then they've been pecking shit with the hens."
Ian Smith made sure that the money given by MTG (Modern Times Group, parent company of ESL, ESEA, DreamHack) was nothing more than startup money and wouldn't be in debt to them
Ian Smith sat down with other TO's not part of MTG and wanted to partner with them. They declined and called ESIC "ESL spies and we will never align ourselves with you"
"They only were just able to afford, hiring a PR guy on a full time salary to deal with the press and send out those releases you've seen, this year."
"They have a tiny group of staff investigating these things and they have taken on the biggest problems in our scene: the cheating, the match fixing."
ESIC have had "unprecedented levels of cheating to deal with, because there's something wrong with our scene ever since we went online. There's something wrong with it, everyone's lost their fucking pride and self-respect and they got no passion for it anymore, so they think fuck it, what's in it for me?"
He calls out coaches who are talking about players rights when they would rob and steal from them.
Also says more coaches being banned are coming
He also points out flaws in community's reaction to the punishments to coaches bans: "Half of the cunts still have jobs and some of the cunts got new jobs. We didn't even shun the cheating coaches."
ESIC have "found I think another 2 or 3 exploits like that one and they are investigating them all right now, it's going on right now."
"I know that there are going to be more names getting banned, again."
"So they're doing that on a skeleton crew while, investigating 3 continents worth of match fixing in MDL and semi-pro level CS." "They're doing this with half a dozen people." "They don't have any money or any help. People barely even fucking cooperate with them, they are treated like pariahs. It's ridiculous."
"Why are the CSPPA popping off at ESIC on my Twitter timeline, when you should be working together." "because its all about what's in it in for me." "2020, the online era of CS: 'What is in it for me?' How can I cheat, how can I get my paper, how can I bleed this scene one last time before I fuck off and play shooty shooty bang bang Riot Games babys first fps."
RL says that in the CIS region, teams have gone to tournaments and have been eliminated multiple times by the same team. We found out they were cheating and those players who lost, have been cut from their roster, careers ended because of cheaters.
Stream Sniping
"They're all at it in the online era, they're all at it, they're all cheating, they're all using exploits, probably that see through smoke bug got used a bunch of times"
RL talks about how there is no integrity from dead (the player), always denying when caught doing something
On the topic of 'BLAST never said we couldn't stream snipe': "Lies, BLAST never said you could do that, they had to sort of retcon it." "because what happened after that they fucking started snitching and squealing"
"Suddenly you had like, 10 of the top 15 teams in the world, staring into the abyss of being banned for 6-12 months in line with ESIC recommendations."
He says that ESIC was put in a tough situation and couldn't enforce the bans because it would have resulted in killing CS. What resulted was, BLAST, ESIC, and teams came together and gave them a warning and told them, in RL's words "don't do this again or you're gonna get got."
He then says the top teams brushed this off and didn't give a fuck
The new MiBR team playing Flashpoint, that wasn't involved in the previous incidents are doing it again (stream sniping). He gave credit to Flashpoint for the quick resolution and punishment and respect for cogu's response to the situation.
"ESIC came out and said, once more, 'Guys, zero tolerance from now on.'" RL then got upset at community's reaction calling ESIC "pussies" for their non enforcement and said if we want competitive CS we cant ban the top 10 teams.
He points out how players have no integrity and will do anything for an edge as long as they won't get detected or banned or it's within a grey area.
"All of this shit was mad avoidable, even in the pandemic era."
He talks about why aren't we filming them. Why aren't there representatives for leagues and tournaments making sure players aren't cheating?
Match Fixing
"How many years have we let our scene be fucking pillaged by these greedy cunts?" "We just let it happen."
RL says that gambling and skins betting which existed in moderation was "accelerated and blown up by the Call of Duty greedy fucks."
"Never forget TmarTn was on the board of EnVyUs." "His website, CSGOLotto, they had a bunch of off-the-books sponsorships." "NBK promoted them. People forget."
"Those people who had access to the skins, go to the players" "Even people like s1mple, best player in the world, even he scammed knives and skins off fucking fans."
Owners of skin casino sites would approach pros and lend them skins to use in tournaments and possibly keep them after reaching a deal
Players would tip off inside info about matches and teams in exchange for skins. Info such as: roster changes, how they played in scrims
They would use this info to bet and subvert the odds on their sites. "That happened religiously, I can't even tell you how many times it happened."
"I had access to the biggest database of information, from an inside betting circle in NA, and it would take information and screenshots from other pro players, who were feeding them info in exchange for money or skins."
"Some of these players are still playing." "Incredibly, there are players still in the CSPPA today, complaining about the BLAST recordings, that were embroiled in this murky shit back then."
RL also says that there were tournaments where teams contrived with each other, who should throw, who should win.
"There's a handful of people that are trying to fucking clean it up, and you think you get something over the line and you see something like the CSPPA and it's run by corrupt fucking chuckle heads, and now you've got another corrupt body you have to fight on a fucking daily basis, it's demoralizing."
"It's too far gone. Our entire semi-professional scene is compromised."
"It's rife guys, I'm not going to lie any more. It's not just China, it's not just Russia, it's here, it's NA, it's Europe, it's Australia, so much more than you think, so much more than we can prove."
"I get sent chat logs all the time […] and they're morons, these players, short-sighted, amateur, morons and they're doing it on WhatsApp." People would get cut from the bets because they want to make more money, then they leak the logs. He says, from the chat logs, they spread "little" bets across every site they can (400 to 1k dollars) to prevent shifting odds
He says the scumbags who've fucked off to Valorant will do the same there if Riot doesn't do something and says Valorant "is an esports scene heading for a very early fall based on the sheer volume of scumbags that are already there."
"That's tier 2 CS in a nutshell these days. They know they're never going to play in a major, so what's the punishment?"
"All of these tier 2 fucks that are fixing games now they are like the fucking mafia compared to iBuyPower" "These guys are working with organized criminals to fix entire seasons worth of games. That's what's going on in your tier 2 CS."
"I'm literally being told that there are players fixing games at all levels of Chinese esports and motherfuckers with guns are turning up to team houses and stuff."
North America
"Everyone in NA has left we've lost a continents worth of support during this pandemic and Valve haven't said a fucking word."
RL says the Call of Duty "goblins" that destroyed CS for years are the same people who are now trying to leave CS. "The nerve to treat a game where the fans, and the community, and the TO's were nothing but good to you." "To just kick the players out now and go and leave and say 'It just doesn't make financial sense.' Oh you'll slither back when we have a major though for them stickers won't you."
There's a cascading effect in NA where people don't bother with CS anymore and people like Chaos suffer.
He says NA team owners are incompetent for always wanting it easy and always wanting a guarantee on their investment without skill or nuance.
RL says he would be able to market a team correctly and would have a good ROI and also points out how TSM wouldn't even be bothered to tweet that their team, which was one of the best in the world, was playing at the Major.
He also says not all NA owners are like that, compliments and respects Jason Lake who nearly lost everything to keep Complexity going.
He then calls out the incompetence in Infinite Esports when they acquired OpTic Gaming and bought an Indian CS team.
He says HECZ is not to blame here and that they couldn't tell forsaken was cheating when it was so obvious.
They measured his reaction time to the likes of dev1ce and s1mple
When an enemy showed up on his screen he won that duel something like 44% of the time
"was like the number 1 player in the world statistically"
He brought a laptop to their bootcamp and refused to use the high end PCs that hey provided
He respects Andy Miller (NRG CEO) and HECZ but says that the attitude of not being able to easily monetize their teams is "piss weak" and there needs to be a risk.
He says Chaos EC shouldn't be cutting their roster and should be competent enough to be able to figure out how to make money off their team.
He says there are still opportunities in NA and people are panicking and pulling out, and says Valorant will be the same if not worse.
He also says "bums" who couldn't even get out of groups in NA competitions, are making crazy money in Valorant and says it will continue to inflate.
He also said that he heard rumors that EG (Evil Geniuses) are done.
He also thinks that the rumors of a Valve franchised league from before was sparked up from "these lazy fabled weak NA fucking team owners basically trying to see if Valve would bite at the hook if it was dangled and they didn't"
Slasher says NA team owners are really in favor of franchised leagues because they want to make more money. "Most of the powerful team owners right now are on board with ditching this third party organization structure, or they are trying to play this power politics with all the TOs, and that is contributing to a lot of the problems there"
RL says that Riot has proved they can run a franchised league (LCS) and will be profitable in 2021 which is what a lot of team owners care about and says the competition will only serve to snatch people away from CS.
RL continues to say, "I am so sick and tired of what we have done to this scene, I am just exhausted with it." "I think we have legitimately fucked it, I really think we have. I think we're staring into almost like a CGS (Championship Gaming Series) wasteland in NA." "Counter-Strike esports is a fucking joke."
Talent
"TO's have treated CS talent like absolute human garbage for years now."
RL says that people like Sean Gares and ddk switching over to Valorant isn't for financial reasons because they are making less over there.
He points out that TO's can't even give talent a 3 month in advance calendar.
Because of the pandemic TO's won't hire certain people and some people are working more hours for the same money.
He says we as a community don't respect journalists enough which is why we don't have good journalists.
He also says DeKay is leaving the scene soon and that Thorin is close to leaving also
He says he had to talk a caster down from quitting and was struggling to find reasons.
He says that DreamHack told Vince they would hire him but not if he wants to stick with dusT and says that this is the norm in esports. "Constant leveraging of people against each other." and says this is why we don't have a talent union.
New gen casters are getting put into shit situations and the community's reaction to them is adding fuel to the fire
He says the reason Moses left was because of the terrible conditions
He says that Anders had to constantly leave his family and kid because someone fucked up or broke promises and had to constantly tell his kid to their face that "daddy can't be home this weekend."
He says that esports has always been a lie to sell you this dream, "Meanwhile there's about 2% of the cunts getting all the checks."
Valve
"Anything that Riot does, is better than Valve's inaction"
Slasher says that the larger aspect of esports as a whole compared to other entertainment mediums and Valve's lack of inattention are the bigger problems. He continues saying that the fact that Valve let their game be ran as an esport, they need to take on the responsibilities of it.
Both Slasher and RL wants Valve to take control but not on the level of Riot Games, there needs to be a balance.
In case it was ever a question: Gabe Newell has been to 0 CSGO Majors.
RL calls Valve out saying they could have done something during the gambling era.
He says Valve used to come to the majors, but doesn't think they do anymore.
RL had met with Valve at the Cluj-Napoca Major and had tried to appeal iBP's indefinite punishment and had also gave Brax's life story:
A recent family member passed away, they had lost a lot of income, they had to live in trailer, iBuyPower did not pay any salaries, and was pressured by family to make money who didn't support his career.
RL said that Valve told him, "How dare you try and make us feel guilty." "We shouldn't feel bad about enforcing the only thing that matters that we need to make players afraid of: cheating and match fixing"
RL also tried to share other info about match fixing and nothing came of it
RL points out that Source 2 or a new engine is not something you will want based on the experience of transitioning from CS 1.6 to CS:S. "Valve's track record with brand new engines being launched, not fucking great from what I remember."
Slasher says "If there is anything the community should do, is pressure Valve to hire a community manager."
They say that we need a commissioner, a community manager (not the person who runs the Twitter who posts memes all day), then we need to have a circuit
RL reiterates that Valve doesn't care about CS esports and says they need to change the culture at Valve to make them care about CS esports
Slasher says a systemic problem is making it so working on CSGO would be a bad decision for you as an employee for Valve
He also hasn't talked to Valve in ages and have sent over bugs and cheats and doesn't get emails back anymore
Slasher says we should be directing attention at the developer leads, pointing out Ido Magal, if he even is still the project lead
RL thinks that Ido and Brian are the only people that "vaguely even give a fuck about CS" and were the only people that RL recalled that actually read Reddit and paid attention from time to time
"It is really fucking precarious. Somebody has got to step the fuck up and start giving a shit"
Slasher suggests org owners, with CSPPA, with ESIC, with TOs have a concerted effort against Valve
"Riot Games are doing better things than Valve in the esports space" which is something RL didn't think he'd say.
"People who used to be talent, working with unions, arguing with other talent, when the unions fucked them over, can't understand their perspective, TOs fucking over broadcast talent, broadcast talent wanting to leave and go and work for orgs, orgs having no money, Valve might take coaches away because all the coaches are cheating, ESIC has about 4 people in a fucking call doing the investigations, everyone thinks they're spies for ESL, ESL are just the evil fucking overlords wanting to rule the scene and will just somehow, like cockroaches outliving a nuclear bomb, and Valve are in a fucking holiday in Hawaii thinking about the next Dota character because they don't give a fuck about us."
Closing Statements
"We've peaked. If we want to sustain and exist, now is the time to figure it out. No esports lasts as long as this, we've already done 8 years. We've already broke the records. We have got to figure out a way to coexist and drive the negative forces out and we need to do it as a collective and we're not doing that."
RL compared the Counter-Strike scene to the people on the Titanic who ran around with guns robbing people while the boat was sinking.
"We have given up on being a respectable esports scene." "We are now a conduit to make money for those who want to just milk it, just have one last ride, one last roll of the dice. It's done." "What a fucking mess. What have we done to our fucking scene?"
"There's just too much self-interest driving all of this." "I don't see a way we stop the dominoes." "When it's that bad, when there's that many dishonest people that ESIC have to come out and say that if we punish them all there's no one left. What does that tell you?"
"How many opportunities have we had to clean house? How many times have we said, 'this must never happen again', and another scandal." "The entire skins betting operations was the biggest criminal conspiracy in esports ever executed and no one has been punished for it." "The people who could be driving that don't want to."
"Right now people are fans of those organizations because the scene has value. It is worth being a fan of Astralis because they are excellent at Counter-Strike. It is worth being a fan of s1mple because he is the best player in Counter-Strike, maybe the exception of ZywOo. If the scene is devalued, if the scene loses its meaning, those things lose its meaning too, and people will leave, people will stop tuning into the games. I have seen it happen in multiple esports, this is not my first time at the rodeo. I am getting big Brood War vibes right now and I don't like it."
"The role you play in all of this as fans, as viewers, as listeners, as consumers of esports content, it's absolutely imperative that you know who the good guys are. It's absolutely imperative that you use your voice. It's absolutely imperative that when things are bad, you know who, at least, is trying to make them good, and you have to apply your criticism to the right targets."
He continues saying it's no good in continuing to attack ESIC and saying how they are bad, ESIC have it hard
He says CSPPA are on the right side of the argument on BLAST but have been on the wrong side of many arguments many times.
"If you are not willing to stand along side the weakest member of the union, with the least amount of influence, and the least amount of power, then it is not a union at all and you shouldn't pose as one." "You wanna serve a bunch of special interest do it, everyone else in esports fucking does, but do not pose as something you are not." "We love the players. I've been fighting for players rights for as long as I've been able to, but the CSPPA is not what we needed."
"They are not applying the pressure to the right people, they are not fighting the right battles, they are not helping their weaker members."
He says what orgs have done by keeping or hiring coaches is bad. "When you give up on holding an appreciable standard, you've lost the scene" "Competition matters, rules matter, punishments matter, achievements matter, excellence matters" "If you start stripping that away, you have nothing" "You guys need to take that knowledge and apply it sensibly."
"Valve has sold you all down the river, they sold everyone in the esports scene down the river, tournament organizers are selling their talent down the river. Don't hate on them for sounding tired after a 16 hour day. Don't hate on them because the hype for a matchup they've seen for the 20th time in the past 3 months, they can't be as excited or it sounds contrived. Support your guys, they're there for you, these are your people."
"This community has got to start acting like one for the first fucking time. Just put the petty shit away, let's try and fix this fucking scene while we still have one to save."
"You can't rely on Valve, you can't rely on ESL, you can't rely on the CSPPA, you can't rely on anyone." "Once again, it's gonna be the likes of us, the amateurs, the people who give a fuck, rolling up our sleeves and grafting." "I'm old and tired and I don't want to have to do it again. People need to pick up the torch and do it."
"Like Michal did, like Dudenhoeffer did. You see something wrong, fix it. You see somebody doing something wrong, call it out. If you think something could be better, let people know."
"Vote with your wallets if you're not happy with the direction Valve goes in. If when we do get to the Major, they serve up another subpar, same old bullshit stickers and signatures package again, do not buy it."
"You're a powerful block and if you use it correctly we can fucking avert this disaster."
"I'm not doing another year in this broken, bust-up fucking scene, where everyone is miserable, everyone is broke, everyone is tired, and everyone is trying to fucking rob everyone else, blind, while the fucking people who are meant to be protecting you, are just fucking enhancing it and lining their own pockets."
"I'm not doing it anymore and you shouldn't want to do it either."
"I stand by every fucking thing I said. I mean it, because this game fucking matters to me, this scene fucking matters to me. I put my life into this, my adult life, and to see it in this state is fucking sad."
China Stocks: "Cash is king during Chinese New Year, with gift-giving in the form of ‘red packets’ a major driver. Given that companies and stock markets are closed over the festivals, swathes of profit-taking take place to take vast sums of cash out of the system – causing fluctuations in stocks." Chinese New Year is Friday, February 12, 2021. $KXIN – Merger play - Kaixin Auto Holdings operates as a used car dealership in the People's Republic of China that has the internet swinging this play. The daily chart some trader dream set up. PT 8.40 $KNDI China's Ministry of Commerce issued guidelines for promoting auto consumption with heavy emphasis on electric vehicles. Chart just had a golden cross on the 2 hour, this is a swing with potential to get into the low 20's. $OCG This a long swing; China play volume seems to be increasing. Just a matter of time before it is found. MACD and RSI indicating a bullish trend short term PT $8.84 resistance then long swing PT $17.58. Sympathy/Related: #QTT # CTK #WIMI #TIGR #AIHS #CMCM #UXIN #LAIX #TAL #DQ #LU #SEED #SXTC #BEST #TC #GSX #CCNC #PETZ #TKAT #PLAG #NCTY #MOXC #EVK #JRJC #AIH #HGSH #CCM #PLIN #BABA #TAOP #TEDU #LXEH #OCG #YGMZ #ATIF #JFIN #CLEU #BHAT #TANH #CAAS #WEI #OCG #NIO #XPEV #LI BTC/BLOCKCHAIN: Bitcoin over 40K $MARA $RIOT $BRQS – keep watching as this type of momentum continues. Sympathy/Related: #MOGO #NXTD #IDEX #MGI #IZEA #EQOS #IPDN #DPW #PHUN #EBON #SOS MARIJUANA: $SNDL – making new highs Ah to $3.68 continuation tomorrow $HUGE Up big today on heavy volume! Looking for continuation tomorrow as the marijuana sector heats up and people start to look for the forgotten names. $APHA – made all time high today $CRBP – Still needs a gap to fill. Sympathy/Related: #CRBP #KERN #ACB, #TLRY #OGI #CGC #HEXO #CRON #$IGC Oil / Energy Sector: $TGC alerted to overnight this play. Many traders are on this play. It is being compared to $CGIX with the sentiments we have been getting in the market expect this to gap up. Extremely low float with a strong close ah. Sympathy/Related:: #WWR #CBAT #PECK #PLUG #CLSK #FCEL #SUNW #AMTX #PEIX #TRCH $#ENG #SPI #WATT #ALAC #OEG #OPTT#SYPR #SPI BLM STOCKS: BLACK HISTORY MONTH $SALM – was getting hits today again. Sympathy/Related #LMFA #IMTE #UONEK #CARV #BYFC #UONE Biotechs: $NTEC - Runner today up over 33% during regular hours and another 38% after hours for a total of over 70% gain today, and its JUST GETTING STARTED. Daily double bottom measured move puts the stock north of $18. Looking for major continuation here. $SAVA - Cassava Sciences has entered into an agreement with SEVERAL institutions to purchase 4.1 million common shares at $49 a share for a total of approx. $200 million in a registered DIRECT offering. Cassava is using the proceeds to develop simufilam, its lead candidate for Alzheimer's disease. The chart shows a pullback to the slingshot and two buy arrows printed at the last two 2 hour candles. Looking for a full out run tomorrow once the market fully digests this news. The company is DEVELOPING the drug. They would only do this if they are sure of its approval with the FDA. $OCGN Ocugen, Inc. Announces Closing of $23 Million Registered Direct Offering of Common Stock. Offerings in this market had been loading opportunities. Smart money loaded awaiting run up as well as news. $RCMT insider loaded on 1/15/21. After hours this stock had news RCM Technologies Division Thermal Kinetics Awarded Al-Corn Clean Fuels Sanitizer-Grade Ethanol Project; Contract Size Not Disclosed. The market had not full reacted to this news. Low float of 8 million this type of contract news expect a continuation play. $AVCO – has hit multiple bottoms, now on a bullish trend, above all the (20,100, 200). They are working an emergency rapid Covid blood test. Just waiting for news about their progress with the Rapid test. Resistance and PT $2.16 if then it breaks and finds support then it will run to $3.67. S/L $1.16 Sympathy/Related:: #ANVS #VXRT #AEZS #MBRX #SLS #CRMD #PRTA #VTVT #ALVR #PLRX #ARTL #GMDA #GRCL #TLSA #ATOS #IMNM #NKTX #AZRX #SAVA #ADMS #SBBP #CNSP #AKER #TTOO #AGEN #OPGN #OCGN #LMNL #GMDA #WATT #GHSI #GEN #AVGR #SLRX TECHNICALS: $VRME - VERIFYME raises $8.7 million from an offering of common stock. Stock drops 16.5% today. Chart looks ready to pump tomorrow. VerifyMe is the company that provides security solutions for the identification and authentication of people, products, and packaging for various apps in the US. Company expecting to be profitable in 2022. Company expects to grow 70% year on year on average which signals high confidence from analysts. As apps continue to require security and authentication, VRME is sure to continue to grow at a rapid pace. $MDLY Swing, Bullish trend above all the MA (20,100, 200) on the daily chart but we have resistance $14.68 then we could have a PT $32.74. $FUBO will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be March 2, 2021. The company is expected to report EPS of -$0.53, up 22.06% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $97.20 million, up 6330.45% from the year-ago period. No PT, FUBO has a huge following online, but if you put a gun to my head, I would yell $56.36 to be on the safe side. Backburners: ^RMCT ^MVIS ^NTEC ^LYRA ^DMTK ^RNWK ^OGI ^ANCN ^BOTH ^DSP ^TRCH ^RKDA ^AYRO ^TNXP ^GHSI ^UAMY ^CEI ^ITRM ^NAKD
I'm not going to make a big paragraph, just point to point facts. The Basics :- Fact 1 : This subreddit is a discussion forum for various CryptoCurrencies. Fact 2 : This is NOT a PUMP and DUMP subreddit where we encourage users to buy a coin showing various articles and ask them to FOMO in. Fact 3 : CryptoCurrencies can be traded 24/7 on exchanges, there is no closing or opening, and there are also no entities that can HALT trading and prevent you from buying/selling. Fact 4 : There is a lot of volatility in crypto relative to normal stocks. This is an emerging concept and get in only if you can LOSE your money in a SINGLE DAY! Fact 4 : There is also a lot of misinformation on all social media in regards to Crypto. Assume every single person explaining why a coin is better is a SHILLER, AKA he wants you and all the people he talks to buy his favourite coin so that price can increase. Fact 5 : Don't trust even a veteran investor or any other person showing fancy graphs saying that certain coin will go up or down. Especially twitter is full of these people, don't even trust the verified twitter accounts. Fact 6 : DO NOT BUY THESE GIVEAWAYS, no one gives you crypto if you send them some amount, IF you send it, it is GONE! Can't come back! Fact 7 : The DOGECOIN growth is now a PUMP! so remember, all the PUMPS follow a DUMP! I had a experience and I don't want this for others. Same was the case for XRP Ripple coin in 2017 and it is now running lawsuits to lawsuits. Fact 8 : CryptoCurrencies are NOT ILLEGAL! If you see warren buffet say what is bitcoin and we can't even see it, it isn't worth a dime, ask yourself, why is this man saying so? these people are the old ones who believe and live on DOLLARS! Crypto is harmful for their personal gains. Fact 9 : Crypto is NOT a GET RICH FAST scheme. And it is also never too late to get in or also get out! Fact 10 : DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH. A healthy Skepticism is what saves you in whatever situation you are! Imagine this, we all literally see the IMDB and RT ratings for a movie to watch it or not which can be watched at our whim via online streaming, then why shouldn't you READ the OFFICIAL WHITEPAPER and roadmap for a certain crypto? Okay basics done, now I assume you want to get into crypto. The intermediate stuff: Fact 1 : When you buy CryptoCurrency from an exchange, YOU DON'T OWN THE CRYPTO. It is just the exchange saying that you have bought it. If the exchange gets hacked, YOU LOSE ALL OF IT. Fact 2 : So, what to do? This is where WALLETS come in! You have to transfer your crypto from the exchange to your wallet. Every wallet has a private and public key and a backup phrase. The wallet Address is used as an "Address" i.e it is used to RECEIVE Crypto. If you want to withdraw your crypto from exchange or ask someone to send some crypto to you, you give them the WALLET ADDRESS. Fact 3 : Save your wallet backup phrase in case you lose the wallet. NEVER GIVE BACKUP PHRASE OR YOUR PRIVATE KEY TO SOMEONE. And for god's sake WRITE DOWN THE BACKUP PHRASE on a paper. Don't take a screenshot and throw it away in the depths of gallery waiting for your phone to be reset someday. Fact 4 : Wallets can be classified based on 2 things. Based on who holds them : Custodial and non-custodial. Custodial means that you DON'T OWN THE WALLET and the wallet just merely gives you a way to interact with your crypto. Non custodial means that YOU ARE THE SOLE OWNER of that wallet and it is safer and also better to the cause of Crypto. Based on HARDWARE/SOFTWARE : As you guessed, software wallets are wallets that exist on your digital devices, phones are better than computers. Although these are better than holding in exchanges, Hardware wallets are even better. Hardware wallets are like the literal non-crackable personal SAFES you can BUY for around 50/60$. Fact 5 : Alright, wallets aside. Exchanges/your wallets have something called a transaction fee. This is used to perform your transaction and SEND your crypto to its destination. Fact 6 : Every coin/token has a UTILITY. See what it is and if you believe it can fulfil its purpose and also has the team/developers to take it forward, only then invest. For example ETH Ethereum was created to enable people to build Apps on it like a universal open source computer. And DOGECOIN is A MEME, the creator of DOGECOIN himself says it. Fact 7 : There is a long way to go and it will definitely be full of roadblocks and gains and losses. A single man tweeting bitcoin makes it go up and a news that someone sold big chuck of bitcoin makes it go down. Learn to have DIAMOND HANDS and hold! Fact 8 : Although the mods here do their very best 24/7 to maintain a healthy environment here, there is no shortage of people commenting their coin will rise. Become immune to this. Daily articles are posted and also some success stories saying how BTC helped them buy lambos and stuff. This is survivor bias. No one will come over and say "Hey I lost money buying crypto", human mentality itself is hardwired to share successes not failures. Fact 9 : Never ever take ADVICE from the INTERNET. Would you ever ask your neighbour where to put your 1000$? In the same way, if you ever ask someone what to buy, they will most prolly say to buy their coin. Fact 10 : INVEST ONLY WHAT YOU CAN LOSE. Learn what is Dollar Cost Averaging. Don't try to time the market and buy at lows and sell at highs. No one can predict these markets. Have an exit strategy for yourself. For example, I invest 300$ every month and no matter if it is an all time low or all time high. And I intend to pull a big chuck out if my BTC ever reaches to a level where I can afford higher education. Don't have a NUMBER decide your exit time, have a requirement/some personal threshold to pull out. And.., 1 : What you see with the whole GME and short squeeze is literally an endorsement for crypto. 2 : The game has been long rigged by Wall Street guys and crypto is "Intended" to remove these acts of rich people ruling over retail guys. 3 : Crypto is to fiat/normal stock as how the "Diners Club Card" was back then. They said it was just a plastic card, it isn't money. Now look all round you, credit debit and cashless payments are UNAVOIDABLE. Generally speaking, when there is new concept or revolution, there are the early adopters, the denying people and maximalists. This is also a revolution, Warren Buffet said "Bitcoin is RAT Poison", well now it is worth more than his own company's market cap. This is a revolution. 4 : And if you are from wallstreetbets , Welcome Aboard! What you guys have done is literally what is the aim of crypto! "These whole series of events are bullish for Crypto" ..now did you believe what I said,? NO lol, that was listed in basics, DYOR! However a statement may seem correct, check it yourself! And lastly, welcome to Crypto and a new era of economy of the people, by the people and for the people. Crypto is an attempt to make sure that, "The deserving win over the Privileged" in this game. And have fun, weekends are meme days and we post memes too! Terms to learn when surfing this sub: HODL : It means hold and don't sell and "Hold On for Dear Life" is accepted as its full form. SHILLER : A person who promotes his coin for his own personal gains. HFSP : Have fun staying poor Shitcoin : A coin worth nothing (from the sayer's perspective) Altcoin : Cryptocurrencies other than BTC and ETH. Although if ETH is also Altcoin is debatable. MOONs : The incentive/rewards in crypto given to you by the community for your contributions. ATH : All time high DEFI : DEcentralised FInance. Try to learn more about this concept...
DisclaimerI want to thank everyone for the gilds, replies and suggestions. I just do not have time to reply to everyone, but I am reading everything. I am not sure how much bigger the thread can be, I already typed this but it vanished so I think I'm at the limit. I will try to keep updating, but I don't expect the thread to be up top for much longer and will likely vanish soon, so if you need anything save it. Yes, it's hard, it sucks, it's depressing. It is something we all have to do if you want to see this virus go. Everyone knows the deal, too many think they're the exception but no one is. However, staying home is hard so maybe I can help at least one or two people with some incentives. I'll try to give links to some things that can help cure the boredom, and some support if you need it. Most of this might be obvious to some, some might not even have internet and of course, money is a big issue, so I'll try to give some suggestions: For streaming and on demand things such as Netflix et al, don't forget you can subscribe for free for your first month. This goes for most things in the list. If you are worried about putting in your payment details and forgetting to cancel a month later, don't worry! You can sign up and immediately cancel and you still get your free month! For people who don't have a smart TV, you can buy a cheap Amazon Fire TV stick or a Roku box. The Fire stick can go as low as £20 often for 1080p. It will drop to £30 for 4k. I picked up a 4k Roku device for £18 on Amazon once. It's fast and snappy. currently it's going for £33 for the 4k version. Having both, there is little difference between the devices. NowTV also do their own roku powered device. Subscription based streaming sites that all offer 2-4 weeks free for first timers
Netflix *According to comments the second month is free.
Amazon Prime You can either get Amazon video on its own, or take prime with other benefits. I strongly urge those who use Amazon for buying off their store front to use [https://smile.amazon.co.uk/] as there is literally no difference except everything you buy amazon donates to a charity of your choice.
Amazon channels. I believe you can get all these individually but Amazon offers them as channels bound to your prime account, and they are again either free for a couple weeks (again, take them, cancel instantly) or very cheap. I recently subscribed to Starzplay for £1 for 3 months. It has some good shows on it like Fringe, doom patrol. It also has channels like Curiosity stream and shudder
If you have not subscribed to the any of the above, you can get a few months of free TV by signing up and cancelling instantly. I suggest waiting at least 5 minutes just to let it go through the system. Some tips for Now TV. IF you already have a subscription, I've noticed you can get it cheaper by cancelling. When you cancel they will beg you to stay. Select "I can not afford it this month" and they should beg again, telling you what shows they have. If you say you still want to cancel, they'll beg one last time and offer you the subscription for cheaper. This won't work every month, but I've noticed they'll always offer it the first time, then again after a couple months. If you're subscribed to both films and entertainment do the most expensive one as it may not work both times (but it might!). You can also pick up passes from storefronts a lot cheaper sometimes, before I could pick one up on Amazon for £3 but, they seem to have cracked down on it. If you shop around (or if anyone knows of a legitimate store please let me know) you might be able to pick it up cheaper. Lastly, check their website and under your account they should have an "offers for you" section. Completely free TV
If you do have a smart TV and/or device, there are some good free streaming apps. One I really love is called PlutoTV. I know this is on both Roku and the fire stick, as well as Ps4/Ps5 and xbox. Pluto offers a bunch of live channels and now an on demand section, all for free. It has adverts but they are actually short (shorter than regular TV and fewer of them). Some of the channels are just streaming certain shows like Mythbusters 24/7 or Dog the bounty hunter, but it has a lot of old movie channels as well as 24/7 kickboxing and MMA. It also has a 24/7 poker channel I quite like. Another one I like is Rakuten Viki however, I haven't watched it for a while as my fire stick is only 1080p and I have too many other devices attached. I believe it is on Roku but you have to jump through some hoops and have an account. The last I checked on the fire stick you did not. Viki offers a metric ton of Asian shows, mainly from Japan and South Korea but it does have chinese, Malaysian etc. It has subtitles. Some Japanese shows are hysterical, albeit weird. Roku also do their own channels with free shows if you own a device. For those who don't have a smart TV or a Streaming device, you can set up your own computer as a dedicated streaming device with Plex. It's been a while since I used it but I believe it now also offers free movies and TV. Anime If you are into Anime there is
The first 2 are free to watch, or offer premium without ads which you can have a trial with. Crunchyroll is the better of the two with more original choice for Japanese voice and subs, while Funimation has more Dubs. I don't believe HiDive is free to watch but you do get a 2 week trial. These are more exclusives than the previous two. PC Centric software If you are a gamer or like Audiobooks or anything that uses computers for things like music making, programming or graphic design
Humble Bundle offers, as per the name, bundles. A long running site that got bought out by IGN. It offers both single items and bundles you can buy individually/as a pack while also offering a separate monthly subscription for around £8-9. The subscription gives you 12 games on average per month. That's the simplest explanation but it changes somewhat as sometimes you get to pick 10 out of 14 games, or get all 12. Humble bundle offers more than just games though. Every Tuesday they bring a new bundle of games, while Thursday (I "think) a new bundle of books. They very often have books from the Black Library giving you a ton of Warhammer books. Sometimes it's standard E-books, other times it's audiobooks. A few times a year they do bundles for graphic design, a typical bundle would include programs like Paintshop Pro Corel Painter etc, They usually go for £0.76 for tier 1 up to around £18 for tier 3, which would include 4-6 full titles with 10+ addons. They also often have Music making bundles or video editing software as well as Programming or video game development. The bundles change often, they usually have around 11 bundles at a time that last for 20 days. Sometimes it's trash but they do often have some very good deals. Fanatical offers the same as humble bundle except usually not as high quality, but sometimes they do have some incredible deals, and they are very very cheap. Both humble and fanatical are safe, trusted and been around a long time, and they are NOT grey market key sites. They work with the publishers and developers. You can buy games both old and new for a lot cheaper than you would most other places. Unless it states otherwise, keys are usually for steam. **BOTH HB and Fanatical (HB much more common) offer free games fairly often. The catch is linking your steam account to them (at least HB). It is safe however. IndieGala is another site like above. Except, these are much much lower quality. However, they offer a metric ton of free games. Quality is low but it is legitimate, and a lot of free stuff. Game Store Fronts
Steam This one is so obvious I didn't add it, but apparently many want me to. It is the best out there, and you can find almost everything, with fantastic deals.
Greenmangaming offers games cheaply. Again, not a grey market site (which are legal but unethical) and they sometimes do bundles.
GoG (Good old games) is a DRM free site run by CDPR, the makers of the Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk. They offer you games quite cheap and not needing DRM (such as Steam, Uplay etc which is less invasive versions of dodgy DRM from the olden days).
Epic Games Despite the controversy whether you care about their rivalry with valve, they offer free games ever week. Without ever having bought anything I have gained over 170 games. literally. Good games for the most part. They often give you £10 coupons as well.
Twitch Everyone knows twitch, but if you don't, it's a streaming service for watching gamers and girls with low cut tops accidentally bending over in front of the game. However, if you're signed up to prime, you get free games each month (and randomly between the set bunch).
Playstation Store Currently has January sales. Currently the free games for PS+ are for PS4: Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Greedfall. For the Ps5 it is Maneater
Games with GoldBleed 2 and the King of Fighters XIII is available until Janurary 15th whilst little Nightmares is available until January 31st.
Gaming Subscriptions Like the TV versions, you can sign up to these for a free trial (or very cheap). If you do sign up to only one at a time, it should keep you busy for a few months
Xbox Game Pass You can do this on both/either an Xbox or PC. If you sign up to the regular one, you can get a month (maybe three!) for £1. After you have done that, you can sign up to the premium version for 3 months at £1 a month. Most people know game pass, but you can download a large selection of games for free. The premium version gives you games with gold, allowing you to keep the games forever (but can only play with a subscription)
Ubisoft+ I'm not 100% sure if you get a trial or not. This allows a large collection of Ubisoft titles to play for £12.99 a month. Quite expensive but good if you like Ubisoft titles I guess.
EA Play EA's version. Goes by a ton of names I think, EA Access, EA Play, Origin Access etc etc. There's a couple of versions of this, and it is across all platforms (PS4/5, Xbox, PC) but not sure about the switch. I "think" the premium allows you to play on all platforms, while the cheaper one on a single platform, but I may be mistaken.
PS Now a once terrible service that is now actually very good. Allows you to download some Ps4 games to your PS4/5 and lets you stream a massive amount of Ps2/3/4 to your PC or playstation.
There's more like nvidia's service but you need the Shield device which is quite expensive. I'll leave it at that. Audiobooks & Ebooks
Audible Not sure what the current deal is but if you are a prime member you can sign up for a trial and get a free Audiobook each month for 3 months. Some warhammer books are 48 hours long, 3 of those gives you a good 100+ hours of listening!
Comixology Another Amazon company, but lets you download some free comics I believe.
Sign LanguageBSL here No experience myself, suggested by n21brown and asked for a few times. Didn't know SL was so popular! Listed as "Pay what you can"
BBC's Bitesizehere is apparently good for home learning. Again, no personal experience.
If you need some spare change Okay, I don't generally bother with it, but maybe some of this could be useful to you. These are NOT a quick way to make a fortune. These are small things you can do over time for a bit of pocket change
If you have prime you can get a FREE FIVE POUND GIFT CARD by literally just streaming a song from Amazon music (which is included in prime) here is the detailsAccording to the comments it's only for select people, but it's worth trying If the link doesn't work for you just google "Amazon £5 coupon music"
Now, these sorts of sites have been around for years, I haven't used any other than talkInsights which I must have signed up to 10-15 years ago. Basically they send you surveys and you answer them. They are confidential and don't ask for personal details in the survey. You need 2000 points and you get £20. During the pandemic they've slowed down but I probably get around £40 a year. Not much I know, but it's an email followed by a quick survey ticking boxes. Depending on your answer sometimes you get screened out, I'm not telling you to lie but just be consistent with your answers and you should be able to work out how to not get screened. Some emails are only worth 20 points, others 200. It's slow to get to the 2000 but very quick to just answer a few questions.
Apparently beermoneyuk is a good sub to make some pocket change with.
There is also matched betting. I have never done this, I don't have the patience but from what I've read, it's legitimate, it works and you can make a fair amount of cash from it so long as you do it correctly, and there's a ton of guides. I mention this because people stuck at home could get into it and as long as you're careful (I.E not entering in the wrong numbers) it's risk free AND it pisses off the betting shops. It seems people in comments have had success with it. Disclaimer A couple have complained about gambling. This arguably is not gambling. If you are susceptible to addiction do not do it. However, it's argued that there is no fun or buzz in this, and it's a very tedious and time consuming thing. Others argue you can't make the same money anymore (People were making thousands, now only hundreds if that). It's risk free providing you know what you're doing, the risks are user error, such as entering the wrong numbers. Someone pointed out that due to the lockdown, bets could potentially be cancelled due to sport stopping. So use on a side of caution. We're (mainly) adults so I'll leave it up just because this doesn't have the excitement of regular gambling.
Microsoft Rewards This is an easy way to make pocket change doing very little. Most people have a MS account. The rewards program offers you numerous ways to grab points, by playing free to play games, answering small questions (you don't even need to answer most of the time, just open the link and shut it) and by using bing and searching on it. I've gotten 20k points JUST by answering questions over a couple months. There are many rewards but you can grab a £5 gift card for 6k for example, or a month of game pass (and AFAIK you can make points playing the games)
Google rewards Someone mentioned this in the comments. I have not used it, so can not give any input on it. Sounds similar to TalkInsights which I linked. Google states "Complete short surveys while standing in line, or waiting for a subway. Get rewarded with Google Play or PayPal credit for each one you complete. Topics include everything from opinion polls, to hotel reviews, to merchant satisfaction surveys. We’ll notify you when a survey is waiting."
That's it for now. I will try to update as I go along. A long post but I hope that it can help some of you with finding something good to do that's free, cheap or a bargain. I do suggest getting prime, especially since you get free music, free delivery, free TV and music and free video games each month. In fact, there's a ton of perks and I feel I've gotten way over the cost investment. Hope it helps someone at least PartTimeCrazy said if you bought an Apple product you get 3 free months of Apple Arcade and Apple TV free for a year fakehunted is upset I didn't mention wanking. Tesco have 225 sheets of Tissue for £0.75! tale_lost suggested Project Gutenberg for a collection of free E-Books Learning Language Unfortunately, I don't have time to check every link listed so I will link the comments: TogtogtogGives a lot of links for Spanish
Board & Tabletop games Corporal_Anaesthetic has made a list of Board games ilyemco suggested these HEALTH I'm not a doctor! But if you're a smoker, something I strongly suggest is to quit. I struggled for years but in the first lockdown I quit, technically. I haven't had a cigarette since, however, I do that silly thing millennials do. I vape, but, it made quitting extremely easy. I would not have been able to do it if it wasn't for 88Vape They sell extremely cheap liquids at £1 each. You can find these in B&M but you can pick up 25 for £20 or buy your own mix. Vitamin D deficiency has been said to be a big problem for the virus. I'd suggest (again, not a doctor!) that you pick some up. Tesco do a 3 for 2 deal. So you can pick up 270 tablets for £7. If you are vulnerable you MIGHT be able to phone tesco and get put on their delivery saver list (currently it's paused but phoning may help. At the very least they might give you a priority slot. I did this for my mum, we didn't shop at Tesco but I phoned for her, and they put her on with no hassle, so she can always get a delivery. HELP & ADVICE The lockdown Rules. Reasons to leave home include:
Work or volunteering where it is "unreasonable" to work from home. This includes work in someone else's home, such as that carried out by social workers, nannies, cleaners and tradespeople
Education, training, childcare and medical appointments and emergencies
Exercise outdoors (limited to once a day). This includes meeting one other person from another household in an open public space to exercise
Shopping for essentials such as food and medicine
Communal religious worship
Meeting your support or childcare bubble. Children can also move between separated parents Activities related to moving house
I want to add, if you are in danger you are also allowed (and must!) to get away from the situation for some reason, BBC seems to have missed this very important thing (or I am blind)
FOR THOSE SHIELDING YOU CAN CONTACT THEROYAL VOLUNTARY SERVICE. These people helped my mother with picking up her medicine from the chemist. They were very helpful and went out their way to keep in touch and do it immediately. (It's the only experience I have with them though) _riotingpacifist wanted these links added, but I simply just don't have the time to vet and check all the suggestions here, so I will link as is:
Krita Arguably the best in my opinion. It has a load of options, brushes and a decent UI. It works fantastic with a tablet.
Gimp This is a decent program but last I used, the UI was a pain, and it isn't so user friendly while misses features, but it works, and it is possible to do some incredible creations on it.
Medibang Paint This is slightly geared towards Comics and Manga. I really enjoy using this with my drawing Tablet. As far as I know, it also for regular tablets for Android/Ipad and is free.
You can pick up a drawing tablet on Amazon quite cheap these days! Small ones that are just a black slate such as the wacom ones are good but takes some practice to get use to, but very worth it if you can't afford a dedicated drawing tablet with a screen. Office suit software A couple of free applications for word processing, spreadsheets etc.
LibreOfficeThis has most the average user would need to write their own books or to work from home. There's not a huge amount of difference between the two I'm linking (since I last used anyway) so it's more for preference.
Open Office You can pick this up here and again, like above it's just preference.
Music Making I'm going to direct to matthewharris806 for some links as all the programs I've used like Reason are expensive, or cheaper stuff in bundles such as Magix software. Games development D_Dad_Default gives some links for that here
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