Intel’s stock dropped around 30% overnight, shaving some $39 billion from the company’s market capitalization since rumors of a pending layoff first emerged. The devastating results come after the chip giant reported a loss for the second quarter, complained about yield issues with the Meteor Lake CPU, provided a modest business outlook for the next few quarters, and announced plans to lay off 15,000 people worldwide.
When the NYSE closed on July 31, Intel’s market capitalization was $130.86 billion. Then, a report about Intel’s massive layoffs was published, and the company’s market capitalization dropped sharply to $123.96 billion on August 1. Following Intel’s financial report yesterday, the company’s capitalization dropped to $91.86 billion. Essentially, Intel has lost half of its capitalization since January. As of now, Intel’s market value is a fraction of Nvidia’s worth and less than half of AMD’s.
As Intel’s actions look rather desperate, analysts believe that Intel’s challenges are existential. “Intel’s issues are now approaching the existential,” Stacy Rasgon, an analyst with Bernstein, told Reuters.
I’ve always thought that stocks have to pay dividents, like that’s the whole point of having it? I.e you get paid by the company regularly some of their profit, based on how much stock you have.
Does this mean that the only way how to make money from their stock now is to sell them to someone else? But then, it has nothing to do with the actual company and money they make, but you are paid by someone totally unrelated - the guy who buys the stock from you. I don’t get it, I suppose I’m missing something.
There are different types of stocks. Some stocks give you physical ownership, amusingly one time Warren Buffet accidentally bought like 300 cows once, and it was physical stock he bought. After it was realized, he had like 3 days to figure out what to do with them and ship them across the country.
Investing in a variety of types of stocks (including arguably physical stock, which is why some people buy gold) gives your portfolio some stability and diversity.
At least for the US, yes you are correct that this was the conventional logic that governed the average joe’s investment into a stock, up until… roughly the 60s or 70s.
I am not going to write a dissertation on the history of American financial investment, but yeah nowadays, the way you invest in the stock market is … you buy a stock, hope that its value increases by more than inflation, and then sell it later for what is called a capital gain, ie, profit from the difference between the price you bought vs the price you sold.
So yes, your the second half of your post is correct:
You buy Stock A for 100 from Some Guy 1, then later you hope to be able to sell Stock A to Some Guy 2 for 150.
The specifics of this can easily get absurdly complicated with exceptionally complex and advanced math and mountains of rules and regulations, but basically, what still holds true is this:
Literally a goldfish swimming to the left or right side of a tank to indicate what stocks should be bought or sold, this outperforms the average financial ‘wizard’ on wall street making your investment decisions.
BUT, basically at no time in the past 20 or 30 years has putting your money into a bank’s savings account to earn interest managed to beat the inflation rate, so if you want a chance to actually be rewarded for setting aside money, you put it into stocks, a mutual fund, an index fund, and well if you ever need to pull some cash out for an emergency, you get fucked by fees.
What you really do is buy real estate. But you have to already have a good deal of money to do that.
Isn’t capitalism fun?
I see, stonks are way more bullshit than I thought. Is there anything else you can do with your stock, other than sell it to someone else? I always thought that crypto is such a scam especially because in the end, it has no value in itself, and the only thing you can do with it is sell it to someone else. If noone wants to buy it, well, you are fucked. Does it mean that stocks are exactly the same concept? I always thought it has something to do with the vaule of the company and the profits it earns, but if there is no way how to cash them out other than selling your piece of paper to someone, then it’s really the same? I suppose that unlike crypto, the stock price increases if the company is turning profit, but you still have to find someone to sell it to, right, so the price is increasing only because the demand from people willing to buy it is increasing due to it turning profit, but it’s not really tied to the actual value of the company, so it’s exactly like crypto? Or is the price set by some different mechanism than crypto is - pure demand from people willing to buy?
Is there anything else you can do with your stock, other than sell it to someone else?
Many stocks pay dividends, and outside of that and voting, you can use a large amount of stock holdings as collateral for loans. That’s largely how Musk and other rich dumpster fires buy things.
Is there anything else you can do with your stock, other than sell it to someone else?
This is where it starts to get complicated.
You can promise to sell you stock by a certain date in the future to someone, at a price the two of you agree upon now.
If the actual price of the stock goes below the previously agreed price, by that deadline, well then you probably gained money.
If the actual price of the stock goes above the previously agreed price by the previously agreed date, you probably lost money.
This gets even more complicated when you take out a loan to buy a stock, and then do the above.
Theres a whole lot more. Check out investopedia.
I always thought that crypto is such a scam especially because in the end, it has no value in itself, and the only thing you can do with it is sell it to someone else. If noone wants to buy it, well, you are fucked. Does it mean that stocks are exactly the same concept?
Its the same in that both crypto and stocks can crater to zero if there are no buyers.
It is different in that crypto, as you say, is completely digital and nontangible, whereas most businesses on a stock exchange have at least a basis for their stock valuation in real world assets, products, services, revenue flows, profit margins and such.
Basically, what is more likely to go completely tits up?
A random NFT scheme?
A brand new start up IPO?
A long established industry giant?
Probably the 1st then 2nd then 3rd.
Or is the price set by some different mechanism than crypto is - pure demand from people willing to buy?
Ultimately they are both markets, which have prices ultimately determined by what people feel is a fair price.
Both involve projecting possible rise or fall in the value of the asset (stock vs crypto coin), but in the case of crypto, there is usually 0 actual underlying fundamentals, there is no business model beyond ‘if we all invest in this it will be worth more money’, which works until the price goes high enough that usually the person or group that invented the crypto sells all of their crypto. This causes panic and everyone else sells off for much less.
Functionally, that means a whole bunch of people lost money, and the originators made a whole bunch of money.
A pump and dump scheme, its usually extremely illegal.
Crypto bros kept acting like the laws governing finance did not apply to them.
Turns out, the laws do apply to them, and even as bullshit as the stock market is for the average joe, basically the entire crypto sphere collapsed in 6 months after it turned out that they were basically all cooking their accounting books and doing all kinds of fraud.
While the stock market is largely bullshit in many ways, it is at least regulated to prevent many different kinds of financial fraud, while the crypto sphere is almost entirely comprised of con artists and their suckers.
The huge difference is that a stock is a stake of actual ownership in the company. You can attend and vote in shareholder meetings so with enough stocks you can actually influence what the company does. And unlike crypto there is a natural non-zero price floor, which is the value of all of the tangible assets of the company which could be sold off if the company shut down (less any liabilities).
That’s not to say that the majority of investors, especially algorithmic traders, treat it any different than crypto/gambling.
