Finance & Startups

Welcome friend 👋 This group exists to make money—lots of money—for our members. If you closely follow the advice of our CEO and Sircles Co-founder, John Worthington, you will make money if the market goes up or if the market goes down. You will learn tips, strategies, philosophies and how to read market psychology. You will have your choice of playing it safe with official recommendations “safe bets” or you can follow John into risky (unofficial recommendations) using short-term trades, options and complex hedging strategies. John’s safe bets have returned enormous gains and many pay high annual dividends for a low-risk and prosperous future. Timing is everything, however, and limit orders are your best friend. John will tell you entry and exit points that maximize your returns.

It has been a really good two days. lol. I hope it stays this way for the next two days at least. AFRM and BofA have done me very well.

Yeah, in two days I’ve done very well…in this market climate, I think it’s temporary but I sold some expensive shares at a gain albeit small to position myself in case there’s a drop at some point.

NNE up 11% today, insane flood back into the market.

SPY is ~1% off from ATH, wild how quickly money flew back into the market!

Cap One and Citi Group. But I bought three weeks ago.

What tickers have you been into Scott? I’ve been pretty focused on software lately but always up for some new plays!

Been making money in the financial sector lately.

CLSK is up over 40% in my portfolio, not too shabby 😎

That is true for sure

Interesting seeing all these gains 👍

Escalation in full force it seems, makes for continued bargains in the market! 🤓

Xi said today that “the unification of the island (Taiwan) is a historical inevitability.” Taiwan Semiconductor is the global leader (70% of all supply) for cutting edge chips that go into everything from smartphones to cars to AI data centers. Taiwan is a little island off the coast of China but an economic powerhouse. They’re already squeezed by a shortage of critical components due to the Mideast conflict. Any disruption for them should be to the benefit of Intel (INTC) so I’d keep betting on Intel even after its big run. I wouldn’t necessarily buy it today, but I wouldn’t sell it if I owned it. I’m betting the other way.. against Taiwan Semiconductor (TSM) so we’ll see which one pays off more. My options don’t expire til 2028. But just thought that was interesting and something the world should be watching closely

I thought this was interesting tho.. if a picture is worth a 1000 words. This is President Xi of China with Taiwan’s opposition leader today in a rare meeting. Look at the body language and how cold their energy is:

No it’s not one I follow closely enough so I wouldn’t want to offer guidance on it

Hey John do you have a take on INTUIT?

Today’s markets started down, as expected, but turned green on the headline that Israel would enter talks with Lebanon. Meanwhile the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to shipping and the two sides are talking past each other. Iran is playing Trump. Keep in mind, their most powerful weapon is time. Oil ticked up a bit and my UCO ended a little higher on the day. NCLH dropped a little as well. Not big moves yet, however, while most people here think it’s all going to blow over soon. The big move of the day was CRCL. It fell on an analyst’s downgrade of the stock from neutral to sell. This provided a buying opportunity so I picked up more shares under $85 and I’ll buy more if it’s down in the coming days. The analyst has it wrong and that’s very common. I’ll provide more information under the CRCL topic

Since last week my investment has gone up 17% Cheers to INTC

Oh ya huh I forgot about that thanks for the giggle

Depends on what you’re holding but I expect the market will be down tomorrow and for the week as people realize the strait isn’t opening and nothing has changed. Trump is sending JD Vance (the guy who demanded a thank you from Zelinski) to Pakistan to negotiate with the Iranians. What could go wrong?

Can I expect my gains to be lost tomorrow?

@Elizabeth so happy for the Intel Nvidia news!

INTC jumped 10% today

BWET had an insane swing!

I also bought some UCO which is the Bloomberg Crude Oil 2X leveraged ETF. Down a lot today, not surprisingly, but if oil keeps rising this one will give you high returns. Yesterday a barrel of Brent Crude hit its highest spot price in history. $144 per barrel. This is a price for a physical barrel of oil. The futures contracts have all declined double digit percentages today but whereas they trade instantly.. physical oil still needs extraction, transportation and delivery. This equation hasn’t changed and is a real-world pressure point on the price of oil which can’t be ignored

Yesterday I said Trump would let Iran sweat it out til after the close of the market then he’d back away from the strikes.. so I’d be selling more of those Norwegian (NCLH) puts before the close yesterday. Did I…? No, I got greedy.. classic mistake. I knew better but no reason to be affected going forward or change my thesis. Steve Weiss on CNBC just now, who’s usually very cautious, just called this the “all clear” for the markets. And that “we’re not going back to the tension we had before the ceasefire.” I’m very surprised to hear him say that and I disagree. He thinks this is the off-ramp Trump was looking for (which I agree with) but as the reality sinks in, Iran’s demands are totally unacceptable. So where does that leave things? Not much different than it was yesterday. Oil isn’t moving and storage tanks and refineries are running dry. There’s no way oil prices don’t go back up. I added to my May 15 United Airlines (UAL) $80 PUT options.

Don’t buy into this relief rally. The Iranian’s never opened the Strait or had any intention of opening it. The markets are not all-knowing or all-seeing. They’re based on fear and greed emotions. The Iranian’s have two very powerful weapons 1. The ability to close the Strait of Hormuz which they demonstrated is as powerful deterrent as a nuke 2. Time.. time is on their side. They can let Trump twist in the wind as they drive up input costs all over the world. Markets will be down again as soon as tomorrow or even by the end of the day will give back a lot of gains

only 2 tankers made it through before closure again.

because Isreal attacked Lebanon, which is an Iran ally.

Just saw a headline that said straight remains closed haven’t gone through it yet

Btw man I always love how numbers driven your messages are speaks to my analytical Brain😂

Absolutely Right Homer! which for the country would be bad not only for our economy but also shows the world we might have lost this one. Maybe we’re not all that powerful. If they did still have uranium then well ok price to be paid but as cynical as it sounds I think agreeing to these terms is terrible for the United States as a country given the counter of continued escalated war with higher stakes if the U.S. wants to keep its place as king of the world you kinda have to put a boot on the the throat of Iran make it clear that we won which would be proven to be a bloodier uglier more costly war. Again what a hard spot to be in.

I think it'll take time for people to realize this agreement, if approved as written, will be far worse than the one we had years ago, making the $1B-to-Iran talking points look like pennies. We're talking ~$2M in tolls per ship given to Iran, there are 800 ships sitting there right now, and a monthly average traffic of ~2,500 ships, or ~$5B monthly income to Iran...absolutely wild. Ships are slow and were disrupted for weeks. Equilibrium will take time to establish and any hiccup along the way could make those May/June puts hit.

I still like the longer NCLH I have some for late may and June I think j will wind up working out

Yes hopefully he at least trimmed I was able to get out of some for decent gains but they will be offset to a break even one end of next week if this sticks I also grabbed an ibit 38 for close Monday. yesterday at like noon and well OOPS on that one 😂

Both sides are doing a lot of winning chants, but this is far from over. Ceasefires don't rebuild infrastructure or bring back the lives lost. The ripples will be felt for a long time, and any collapse of this deal pulls us right back down, probably even lower. Had a couple on NCLH and feel ya, that one stings. John showed some great gains yesterday, I hope he locked that in before close.

Doing a lot of holding, and trimmed some stocks that went green hegseth declared victory this morning looking at temps truth social post and Irans tweet it looks like we are one one being 1 ft in the wrong direction for this to start back up sticking to a lot of long term plays rn especially since all my puts are blood red right now

Cautious optimism and taking gains where I can. Israel is not happy with the agreement, Lebanon peace in/out of agreement conflict, missiles were still flying, possible toll on Strait passage, and some senators now saying congress needs to approve a stop to the "war"(thats apparently not a war nor did they approve the start of one).

Intel back to 2021 levels 🥳 Such an awesome turnaround NNE announced some advancement in their Argentina production https://seekingalpha.com/news/4573249-nano-nuclear-advances-proposal-for-uranium-production-plant-in-argentina

Shoulda coulda wouldas like ROM for 2x tech bull. Was $80 at 11am, now at $90+😮‍💨 Lessons learned on who jumps when the Strait is closed and when it reopens.

Holy crap! That’s gotta be a bunch of people with FOMO that’s such an insane swing

jeeeze! crude futures might be settling around $95 BWET bleeding out, I wonder if it'll give up all it's gains. Tomorrow'a opening is going to be crazy.

@Anthony G & @Anthony L so dang true. My chiropractor's going to retire off my bill. I don't see any winner here, just a contest of who bleeds out slower. Russia v. Ukraine 2.0 Mid-terms are 7 months out. If prices stay elevated into winter, voters will remember.

Jumped into AMZU on the Pakistan rumor, was up a quarter at close. Might let it ride a couple of days but will be watching that one closer than I normally like to

Like Homer said wild times 😂

So right Anthony. It would be nice if it was easy. But when is anything easy. lol.

@Anthony L I don’t think he can unless there were some movement on the Iranian hard lines trump can’t agree to there hard lines I might have missed some news but last I heard all the Iranian demands were non starters basically meant to make the U.S. look weak It’s quite the predicament we are in

How long depends on where the Barrons were positioned before he went public. 😅

No kidding, so true Anthony. My patience is really being tested. Hahahaha

It’s crazy how much this market is giving me trust issues I trimmed a lot of my puts that expire this Friday and rebought for the end of the month all at the same trine trimming down green stocks in prep to rebuy lower at some point

Now my question for trump. If he is watching this, will he actually let his ego and stubbornness get out of his way and let it all go and pull out of the Iran war.

All the stocks I’m watching went up above 4 percent after trumps news. Be nice to see that into the weekend.

Yeah lots of green after hours but how long will it last?

I see some pretty nice gains tomorrow for CRCL and CRCA. I hope for at least a few days, that would be nice

CRCL sails caught some wind and up 4% after hours too

Wild times and all I can think about is 2wk multipass.🤣 oil down to 104, awesome job trimming the puts, nclh rallied up to 19+. Not sure if I'm reading right but NCLH had higher after hours volume vs AMZN?!

Just saw, trump says he is giving them two weeks. With that news, the markets I see tomorrow being in green. We will see how long that lasts.

I can’t remember who said it. But a few weeks ago I was listening to CNBC. But they said the market is not like it used to be, move so easy on what someone says regardless of it being right or wrong. This two week thing was I bet times right for the market to come back up at the end. And depending on what happens tonight, it could be bad or good.

Even with the comeback, Norwegian Cruise (NCLH) didn’t really recover.. which tells you that investors concerned about oil prices and the global economy weren’t willing to jump back in it

So funny I was actually shaking my head as the market closed

Such a struggle to breakeven but it came back, for now. Wild to watch and hard to not just laugh at this point.

Yep.. a headline of a two week extension “request” has the market roaring back. It’s a head fake. Iran won’t budge.. they’re great negotiators, however, and may buy more time. Meanwhile oil isn’t moving around the world

market seems to be moving on 2wk pause rumor, might finish flat for the day. Wild times 🤷‍♂️🫠

This is a big test for the market. Will the Nasdaq roll all the way over and close at the lows of the day?

Just saw a CNBC report that a barrel of crude oil is actually $140 today (spot price) highlighting the extreme discontent between what the futures market is pricing vs the reality of what the end user must pay today. I don’t see any possible way that price can fall over the next few weeks.

I trimmed a bit of those as well but letting the majority ride til at least the end of trading. I think Trump might chicken out but he’ll make the Iranians sweat it out til the close of the market which may turn down much further than where it is right now. Maybe Nasdaq down by 500+ if there’s no headline news of another delay on the attack. Up nicely so far tho ☝️