jgradyc
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Posts posted by jgradyc
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A friend's 80-year-old mom wants to start trading in the stock market! She asked me (retired CFP) for advice. I'm going to help her set up two accounts. One will be a "don't touch" account which will mirror her daughter's managed account in a portfolio of Vanguard ETFs. (I plan to make two minor tweaks... adding TMFC and MFMS ETFs to the mix.)
The other account will be a small "play" account that she can research and trade stocks... maybe 5% of her investable funds. She can win or lose to her heart's content. Her objective will be to "beat" the professional account! Her adult children are rich and so is she. If she finds joy in trading stocks, more power to her!
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I mostly use Schwab, but I also have a TDAmeritrade account and I'm learning how to use their Sinkorswim platform. In fact, I'm ordering two monitors to let me see more on the screen. I don't day trade... way too stressful. Instead, I buy with the intent of holding for a few weeks or months.
As a retired financial planner, I held a stockbroker's license for many years. It used to be much harder to beat the market because information was so hard to come by, but now it's at your fingertips.
Still, my best call of the year was low tech. When it became apparent that Biden might win, I sold some tech stocks and invested heavily in cannabis stocks. Immediately after the election, I added to the position. I'm up a lot in those 8 stocks, but in retrospect, I could have thrown darts at a list of cannabis stocks and made money in November. Whenever I start thinking I'm good at this, I remember what John Kenneth Galbraith said... "Genius is a rising stock market."
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This is the monitor that BestBuy rep recommended. Samsung - UR55 Series 28" IPS 4K UHD Monitor (DisplayPort, HDMI) - Dark Gray/Blue
It's currently on sale for $259. So, if I buy two of those and and the Logitech - MK540 Advanced Wireless Keyboard and Mouse Bundle - Black for $29.99, I should be set, right?
Oh, I have USB-C docking station already that I bought for my MacBook so I won't be needing that -
We went to Ashland City Walmart today and the paper towels were almost sold out. We didn't check the TP aisle.
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45 minutes ago, MacGyver said:
No, most new monitors have a USB-C input.
It’s a straight USB-C cable.
Forgive my ignorance. What is a straight USB-C cable? Is it USB-C male on one end and a USB male on the other?
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18 minutes ago, MacGyver said:
It looks like the current generation Spin laptops have a USB-C port.
I'd try plugging the monitor in with a USB-C cable - and of course making sure that whatever monitor you get supports that.
I don't know if you're getting out and about - but if I was comfortable masking up - it might be worth going and taking your laptop with you and plugging it in and seeing the results.
So I would need a USB-C to HDMI connector? I have one of those.
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16 minutes ago, TripleGGG said:
Can't answer about the MacBook Air as I know nothing about Apple products. I have keyboard and mouse at each location that are run through the pluggable. I set laptop to the side, closed and use the 2 monitors. You can use all 3 if you want to. My OCD goes crazy trying to use different size screens. Lol
Thanks. You don't have problems with the text looking spidery? That just drives me nuts.
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Bare with me, I'm a novice when it comes to monitors. How important is refresh rate to use a stock trading platform? How important is 4k? I'll probably go with two 24" or two 27" monitors, unless someone can steer me towards a great deal on 32" monitors.
Best Buy has some 24" for under $149. But I don't know how good they are. EDITED: I'm seeing 32" 4k Samsung for $269 at Best Buy. Looking at Costco now. EDITED AGAIN: Maybe I should be looking at more expensive monitors?
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17 hours ago, TripleGGG said:
I run dual 32in monitors from a Lenovo ThinkPad X Carbon (don't remember which version) or an HP that has been customized. I have this setup at home and both offices. I run them thru a Plugable USB. I use TD Ameritrades ThinkorSwim and usually have it running most of the time. The pluggable allows me to use either laptop at any location by plugging in one wire. Works very well for what I do.
So I would buy the Plugable, buy two monitors, and then I could either use my Samsung Laptop or my Macbook Air, right? Should I also buy a keyboard and mouse and just set the laptop off to the side? Or do I use all three screens? Thanks.
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21 hours ago, MacGyver said:
I think the issue you experienced with fuzziness on the monitor with the Samsung is likely due to it not being able to drive a full 4K monitor well via an HDMI cable. I think you'd need to dial back the resolution.
If the MacBook Air is a 2019 model - you've got a couple of Thunderbolt 3 ports - and that machine will drive at least 2 4K displays at a higher refresh rate than the Samsung would.
Were it me, and I wanted to keep my total spend less than $1000, I'd buy a couple decent 4K monitors, an external keyboard and mouse - and just use it in clamshell mode. That way, you can run both monitors at a depth of field that suits you - and you don't have to worry about looking back from one screen at one resolution to the other. If you prefer Windows to MacOS, you could always install it via Bootcamp and even boot to Windows by default. Or, if you just want a Windows machine to boot as desired - you could do it like we do and run VMWare Fusion - at which point you can just run a Windows machine basically as an app.
When you say "use IT in clamshell mode," I assume you mean the Macbook Air, right?
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14 minutes ago, Moped said:
I believe the
's about to get real. 437 new cases in Knox County this morning. A new one day record. And we won't see the peak from the Thanksgiving holiday for a couple of more weeks. Since Nov. 23 there have been 26 deaths attributed to COVID, according to the Knox County Health Department.That bought the monthly total to 71 and the total since this started to 172. Keep in mind that we only had 5 deaths through July 2nd. Currently there are 129 people in the hospital. Tomorrow they'll announce the available ICU beds. Last week that was 34. I suspect that it's fewer right now.
What website are you using to track this? I can't find it.
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I've started using TD Ameritrade's Thinkorswim platform, which allows moving gadgets to multiple monitors so I want to do that.
Here's the dilemma. I have a laptop I like... Samsung Spin 7 13" i5-8250U at 1.60GHz w/8GB RAM. Screen resolution is 1920x1480. It folds over on itself to use it as a tablet.
One year ago, I bought (and returned) a nice Samsung monitor because 1) The resolution wasn't good enough and the text looked spidery 2) I had to set it behind my laptop, which moved it a few inches further back and my vision doesn't work well past arm's length. The monitor was a Samsung UE590 Series 28" LED 4K UHD Monitor. 3840x2160 max resolution
So... do I need a laptop/desktop with higher resolution? What would you suggest? I'd prefer stay with a laptop + monitor, but I only trade at home so I could buy a dedicated desktop + monitor. I don't want to spend more than $1,000 total.
Oh, if it makes any difference, I also have a 2019 MacBook Air that's just gathering dust because I prefer the PC over the Mac. If it's better to start with the MacBook Air, I could do that for my stock trading.
I'm reasonably computer savvy, if that matters, but I've never worked with graphics cards and I don't know if the card in my existing laptop can be swapped out... or even if it needs to be.
EDITED TO ADD: The graphics card is built in on this laptop. It can't be replaced... not that I'd need to. As I said, I don't really know anything about resolution.
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14 hours ago, Chucktshoes said:
I had a direct exposure on Thursday. I’m going in to get tested tomorrow.
If you haven't already started taking vitamin D3, you should start immediately and take a 20,000 IU on day 1 and 5,000 IU daily after that. Some people are advocating 50,000 IU on day 1. Good luck.
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14 hours ago, Quavodus said:
I'd like to know what happened to the Flu? They still push the shots but, nobody gets it anymore.
It's still too early to reach a conclusion, but the flu has almost disappeared this year. The CDC's flu tracker shows 122,000 tests cumulatively so far for the 2020-2021 flu season with 319 positives (0,3%). For the same week in 2019 (week 46 of the year), there were 190,000 tests, 7,371 positives (3.9%).
So we have 95% fewer flu cases so far this flu season!
Edited to add: Here's the link to the CDC's database from last year and this year.
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/pastreports.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/weeklyarchives2019-2020/Week47.htm
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9 minutes ago, ReeferMac said:
Its called "cognitive dissonance" (look it up!)...
We are so screwed....
I didn't want to copy your entire post, but I agree. Logical fallacies are so fascinating. One that is killing Americans every day is confirmation bias by our public health officials. They absolutely refuse to consider any "evidence" that isn't the subject of double-blind FDA-approved clinical trials. 62 clinical trials are underway on vitamin D right now, but public health officials refuse to even mention it as a possible preventive and therapeutic because of their preconceived bias against vitamin supplementation. Is vitamin D3 a miracle cure? No. But the data is so far is compelling enough for me to take it and recommend it to everyone I see.
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I subscribe to ConsumerLab. It's a service that independently checks supplements to make sure they contain what they're supposed to contain. Anyway, they recently did a study of masks. It's behind a pay wall, but their #1 rated mask was the KN95 mask by WWDOLL. I just ordered 25 today. (That's their smallest package.) I normally wear a surgical mask, but I'm stepping up to a higher quality mask as we move into what is normally flu season. I say "normally" because so far this flu season has been almost nonexistent. Cases of the flu are way down according to the CDC Flu Tracker. Here's the link to the mask. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08L34LN8P?pf_rd_r=CFSEX9PAYY2RZHC9F4DA&pf_rd_p=40eb7df6-3345-4945-93b1-96c5bd9a116d
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15 hours ago, Garufa said:
Phil Valentine doesn’t know jack about medicine but yes, vitamin D is a fairly well-known combatant against illness, especially during the winter months when our sunlight is decreased.
@jgradyc has been telling y’all the whole time.
I'm retired and a competitive runner so I've researched everything related to COVID and vitamin D. I even wrote an Op-Ed for the NYTimes and when it was rejected, I wrote a different one for the Wall Street Journal... also rejected. Over 60 clinical trials on vitamin D are underway right now, which is impressive considering that it's generic and no pharmaceutical company can make billions selling it. Dr. Fauci admitted taking vitamin D himself, but he still won't recommend it to the masses... infuriating!!! Meanwhile, studies are appearing almost daily on the possible benefits of vitamin D. Here's one newly released study of seriously ill 50+ year olds that found that taking vitamin D AFTER hospitalization reduced the need for oxygen therapy from 61% of patients to only 17% of the patients taking D + B12 + magnesium. And these were really small doses if you take these supplements.
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I decided to see how this flu season is going and so far, it's almost nonexistent! The CDC flu data tracker shows 319 positive cases so far this flu season vs 5,299 at this point last flu season. That's 94% fewer cases!) I don't know how these numbers are determined, but they do provide a way to compare week to week and season to season.)
This is an interactive webpage so you'll have to dig around, but it has some interesting charts on the flu.
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4 minutes ago, deerslayer said:
I haven't read much about it, but my biggest question about the coming vaccine is what is the plan for an end game? Will this vaccine be like measles or polio--one dose and good for life? Or will it be like a flu shot--different every year and always needing to be adjusted or redeveloped? If it's the latter, are we facing lockdowns and mask mandates for the rest of our days? Are people ok with this?
This a great question! In my opinion, the end game is to hope it mutates out of existence, kinda like previous SARS. The vaccine is being held out to placate the masses, but realistically, not enough people are going to take the vaccine to get herd immunity. Only 36% got the flu shot last year and it's been around 40% for the past few years. There are lot of people who aren't going to take a vaccine that's been rushed to the market. I know that I won't be taking it. The best guess it that it will require periodic re-immunization... billions for the pharmaceutical industry.
To me, the biggest hope is vitamin D. It's an antiviral and it modulates the deadly cytokine storm. Over 60 clinical trials are underway, which is impressive considering that vitamin D is generic and no pharmaceutical company can make billions by selling it. Scotland is giving free vitamin D to high risk populations. The UK has proposed a similar step. If the US would do this, it could stop the COVID spread by reducing its effects on some people to no more than the flu. Or at least, that's my personal theory.
I buy my vitamins on sale and try to always keep at least a 3-month supply. There's currently a sale for online vitamin orders at Costco. IIRC, those 600 capsule bottles of vitamin D3 cost me $11.99 each. I anticipate at some point, the media will "discover" vitamin D and it will disappear off the shelves faster than toilet paper.
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The CDC COVID Data Tracker is a pretty good source to see moving trends. You can drill down to the state and even to the county level. What's immediately apparent to me in moving around the tabs on this site is that although the number of cases of COVID in the US are spiking, the death rate isn't increasing at a comparable rate.
https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#trends_dailytrendscases
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3 hours ago, macville said:
When the NY Time is questioning things, there might be some issues:https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/health/coronavirus-testing.html
A local Knoxville Doctor found out that Integrity Labs here in Knoxville is using a cycle threshold of 40. Asked why they were using such a high number they said it was because the FDA required them to. It's crazy because the majority of people who are testing positive on these PCR tests really aren't. The mask crap is because people are testing positive, don't have any symptoms and therefore are asymptomatic. However, in reality those people aren't really sick, can't spread the virus, and aren't really asymptomatic! It's crazy and the media is not really digging into this issue.
Wow. That's really an eye-opening article. So the tests are WAY too sensitive, resulting in up to a 90% false positive rate. ...and that's being reporting in the NY Times!
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Since this thread is mostly about prepping and I haven't seen a mention of it yet, I'll add this.
Get a solar panel and a charge controller that will allow you to dial in the desired output. I use this to power my driveway gate. I saw one on Amazon that has USB charging ports built in.
Next, get rechargeable batteries and a universal charger for AA and AAA. Eneloop are typically the best, but I have some Amazon Basics as well. I also have a charger for 18650 batteries.
An inverter to run anything 110v electric you might need for short periods of time.
Download every survival book you can find. Lots are free online.
Download local GPS and terrain maps so you can access them offline.
Candles. Matches.
Water purifier (unscented Chlorox).
Emergency supply of essential medications.
Emergency supply of COVID treatment supplements for entire family: vitamins D3 and C, zinc, melatonin, Pepcid.
FWIW, I think a generator is a bad idea unless you have a fortified compound. If the SHTF, then the sound and lights will attract people who assume, correctly, that you have more than they do and some of those people won't hesitate to use violence to take it from you.
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I've listened to the news conferences with the President's medical team. In the Q&A, not one reporter has asked, "Why is the President taking zinc and vitamin D? Do you recommend it? If not, why is he taking it?"
You'd think at least ONE reporter would care about the thousands of people dying worldwide every day and would like to know if these supplements could prevent some of those deaths.
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On 9/17/2020 at 7:34 AM, jgradyc said:
The more research I read, the more I'm convinced that the solution for most people is vitamin supplementation. Multiple studies have found a strong correlation between vitamin D deficiency and severity/prevalence of COVID 19. Over 3/4 of adults and 9/10 African Americans have less than 30nmol/ml of vitamin D. I started taking a 5,000 IU capsule of D3 daily back in March. My D level recently was 82. The recommended range is 30-100. Oak Ridge scientists recently reported that Summitt, the world's 2nd largest computer, had spent an entire week looking at genes and COVID 19 cases. It found that COVID 19 severity was caused by a Bradykinin storm. It recommended several steroids and.... VITAMIN D!!!
I take vitamins A, B-complex, C, D, E, and K, as well as selenium, zinc, and magnesium every day. I recommend that everyone, at a minimum, take a good multivitamin plus C and D. It could save your life.
Just to follow up on my post on the vitamin D clinical trial, here is what I posted on vitamin D back on Sept 17th.
Stock traders on TGO
in General Chat
Posted
Once I determine likely market direction and likely sector direction, I depend on charting to pick individual stocks, specifically Bollinger Bands, Fibonacci ratios, moving averages. These were difficult to do until about 20-25 years ago. Today, I just select them and poof! they appear.