davidd's A DOLL A DAY 2025

[davidd]

Dude, I keep sayin... get some good stocks if you wanna buy something that appreciates. 

Following the "Liberation Day" stock market "crash" back in April 2025, a friend who likes to think he is a savvy investor, and who has been saying for several years now that "his financial advisor says the market is due for a major correction," sold a lot of his holdings, sure that "the correction" was upon us and a full-on crash was imminent.

I thought he was crazy, and that he should be buying, not selling, but he was sure it was the beginning of a big crash.

I scraped together a paltry few hundred clams and "bought the dip."

Since April, four months ago:

AAOI - up 58%  (This one has been up as much as 103%. It tends to make big swings. I think it's one of those "day trader" playthings.)

DAL - up 49%

NCLH - up 43%

F(ord) - up a mere 17%

What? No losers in the bunch? Yes, of course there are losers.

FUJHY - up a mere 2% (finally)

WEN - down a whopping 26%

Total account - up 34% since April. (It's been up as much as 50%. The traders are playing games, from what I can see, using tariffs and interest rates as manipulative tools, driving prices down then buying and profiting from the inevitable rebound. Most of the decline in my holdings has been in the last week or so. Tomorrow will probably drop again -- there always seems to be a drop on Friday. Monday will depend on what transpires when Trump talks to Putin this weekend. You'd think corporate earnings would affect stock prices, but no, every day the financial news is all about "Trump said this" or "The EU says..." or "Fed Chair offers little on interest rate plans." It's all games among the super-elite. Ultimately, they're never going to let themselves go broke, so "buy and hold" is usually the best plan. Or so my vast four month ex-perience as a trader suggests to me.)

So yeah, you're probably right about buying stocks rather than dolls for investment.

I wish I had more than a few hundred bucks in the market. Now I see how the rich get to be really rich... without working. Start with a bunch of money, buy some stock, and pretty quick you have a bunch more money!

How do YOU choose "good stocks?"

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14 August - A Doll A Day 2025:

Recent arrival: TBLeague (Phicen) S35 1/6-scale flexible seamless action figure with stock head sculpt.

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TBLeague S35 1/6-scale Figure

This model features "attached feet," which eliminates the unsightly seam at the ankle, but which also renders the figure unable to stand without support.

I purchased this figure about a month ago prior to leaving on holiday. Now that I'm back, I was looking at the box and thinking, Whuu...? Whyyy?

Then I remembered that I thought it would be a fun and clever idea to have a couple of generic bikini babes to loiter around in the background of my surf shop diorama. The seamless ankles serve admirably for surfer girls who do not wear shoes and who lounge provocatively rather than stand unaided in action-packed poses.

But what about when she's surfing? Yeah, well, I guess she'll be relegated to "paddling out" and "pre-pop-up" poses.

As for the diorama, that would be the surf shop diorama that I fully intend to resume working on once I get some real life projects out of the way. Of course, that list of real life projects keeps growing, so... yeah.

Anyway, it's a cute figure featuring one of the prettiest face sculpts (in my opinion, at least) that TBLeague has produced, so I'm sure I'll think of some use for it.