So, the saying goes that as a regular stock trading citizen, just follow the numbers. You get the information about stocks in real time, and you can use all sorts of well established statistical analysis tools to try to predict trends and so on. For people who are good at this, it works - and even big firms will always use the numbers as the bottom line.
The inverse is also said to be true - as a regular citizen you can’t reliably trade off information. This is because as regular citizenry we are the last to get information - any large firm will have their fingers in the pie already, and through connections they’re often one or zero degrees from insider trading.
But as Marxists, we like to say we have the curse of always being right. Though every political faction feels this way, the difference with Marxism is we analyse the world in a different way than the establishment.
So, why couldn’t we put this to some use in making stock decisions based off analysis of imperialism and so on?
Well, the main problem is that imperialism and capitalists tend to be winning - so to invest early in their winnings would be to materially support the enemy. Like - investing in Lockheed Martin is pretty much always a safe bet - but it’s also morally reprehensible.
But disregarding this, I’ve been trying to run an experiment using Trading212’s ‘practice’ mode - you get given 5k worth of fake money to play around with, to see how your investments pan out.
Here’s what I did:
Rolls Royce and Lockheed Martin - weapons, and engines for things that carry weapons. Up roughly 20% on each - not a great score, but it was a very safe bet.
Deep Sea Mining - the depressing writing was on the wall with this one. I’ve been watching this issue for years and felt the match was sadly ready to be lit. I was right. Odyssey Marine up 20% , TransOcean up 31% , The Metals Company up 41%
Mining - uncontroversial to say gold has become important due to shaky currencies, but I got in there early because as a Leftist I could see an economic recession coming a mile away. I chose Newmont, because it’s huge and has mines everywhere in stable regions. Up 46%.
At the same time, I also looked for companies involved with Lithium and other metal portfolios related to big tech. Albemarle - up 84%
I also looked for companies looking to operate in West Africa. This was based on looking at how Traore and the west African block had somewhat stabilised, and were looking for ways to fight Islamic fundamentalism - attracting investors. Barrick - up 76%. B2Gold - up 7%.
That’s a pretty successful portfolio. 100% hit rate. Did I just get lucky, or is it really this easy?
For the next phase I’d like to focus on some more niche Imperial bets - looking to find companies that will profit from Chinese investment or American counter investment along Chinas Belt and Road initiative - maybe Uzbekistan? Lol.
Maybe a different way to think of it is, ‘why wouldn’t it be this easy?’. Is the gatekeeper here knowledge and skills, or is it just having capital to invest in the first place?
Personally, I don’t like to give anyone playing this game credit (pun intended), so I know what I’d say.
The risk-reward ratio is unrealistic to make any real money unless you have a large enough balance. For instance, say you want to daytrade a SPY Call Option and have $200 to trade with… you’re probably stuck with a 0 day contract which expires literally that afternoon and can quickly decay into nothing. But you can’t afford even one share of SPY for that amount and the other stocks available are going to be riskier to buy and hold vs. grabbing a slice of the entire market.
It’s doable but WAY easier if you are starting from 20k vs. $20