New Paypal/Evilbay Fees What the....Who the....

[CJ]

anybody notice their balance sheet lately? like getting dinged with a new fee?

somebody gettin greedy or what?

jus sayin...wtf?  ???

 

[JohnRoberts]

I haven't noticed anything new, yet?

JR

 

[Bo Deadly]

I wonder if Square is going to get traction in places where PayPal is now. Unfortuately I don't want to have to integrate 5 different payment services. I don't do payments manually so it has to integrate 100% into a eCommerce site and I haven't seen Square accepted on any sites yet. And I still need whatever Ebay requires anyway.

 

[emrr]

Square doesn't really do any significant vendor protection, unless something's changed radically as of late.  It's really meant for small transactions. 

 

[JohnRoberts]

Square doesn't really do any significant vendor protection, unless something's changed radically as of late.  It's really meant for small transactions.

I own a small position in Square stock (down again today***  :-[ ), because I like some aspects of their business model.

They make working capital loans to their small business customers based on the sales performance they can literally see in the business transaction records. They also have a pretty good certainty of being paid back on those working capital loans, from that revenue stream.  8)

JR

*** Square recently lost their well respected CFO to a better opportunity at a bigger company, usually the CFO leaving is a sign to be cautious about a stock, but I remain optimistic about their business plan. The only cloud on their horizon is borrowing costs will increase with interest rates but that rise seems to be moderating.

 

[cyrano]

I haven't seen Square accepted on any sites yet. And I still need whatever Ebay requires anyway.

FWIW

A lot of AirBnB users seem to accept it.

 

[JohnRoberts]

FWIW

A lot of AirBnB users seem to accept it.

Square has applied for Banking certification and small local banks are concerned because Square could easily win their profitable small business loan business.

Big banks are noticing too and expanding into fin tech.

JR

 

[ruffrecords]

Do you have peer to peer lending in the US?

Cheers

Ian

 

[JohnRoberts]

Do you have peer to peer lending in the US?

Cheers

Ian

Yes p2p lending is legal here.
===
I just read some shocking news... a report suggests that student loan debt has reduced home buying by young people...

I could saved them the money it cost to study that and just told them....  duh. 

JR

 

[emrr]

Square will cover up to $250 in eligible chargebacks each month.  Chargebacks over $250 are not covered.

https://squareup.com/help/us/en/article/5394-square-chargeback-protection

 

[boji]

I own a small position in Square stock

JR moonlights as a quant in his  spare time. 

got stock advice, good sir?  =D

 

[JohnRoberts]

JR moonlights as a quant in his  spare time. 

Certainly not, but I did read a book about statistical analysis last century. I am not married, own a small house, in a small town, and don't smoke or do drugs, so I put my excess cash into the stock market.

I have dabbled in the markets longer than some of you have been wearing long pants. In fact the year I was drafted 1970, I lost more money in the stock market than the US Army paid me, both rather modest amounts.  : (It was hard to follow the market and manage my portfolio from the barracks during basic training).

got stock advice, good sir?  =D

Caveat lector, free advice is worth exactly what you paid for it, often less as most guests on financial programs are "selling their own book" (touting stocks they own, or bad mouthing stocks they are shorting or betting against).

I'm afraid most investing advice sounds cliche (like buy low and sell high), but most good advice is like that. Diversification to spread risk, can also be stated as "don't put all your eggs in one basket".

That said I am guilty of ignoring the popular conventional wisdom. At my age (70) I should own mostly bonds and fixed income investments, but I just can't force myself to follow that herd of baby boomers. We are (or should be) in a rising interest rate environment which "should" reduce the worth of fixed interest rate instruments. When interest rates go up, fixed rate bonds paying now lower interest rates than market will lose future value.  Even my CDs have dropped in market value (less than 0.1% so far).

I do not have enough time to ride out another  decade or two of losses and/or dead money, so have slowly made adjustments, converting more risky stocks to cash and even buying a few 2 year CDs but I am not experienced at fixed income investing, so I keep buying common stocks. (I currently am siting in too much cash so should probably pick up a few more CDs).

If I was a young guy, like so many here, I would be buying the market hand over fist.  I even bought a canadian pot stock when they first hit the scene, but I already sold that at a profit. I sold my twitter stock (too soon apparently),  but there is never anything wrong with taking a profit.

I wouldn't buy bitcoin with all your money, but can imagine it taking the place of gold as a small fraction of a young person's portfolio (I own a little GLD). I am more impressed with the blockchain technology than bitcoin as a store of value.

On topic for this thread I own Paypal and have for years. I also like Square which is not universally loved by the market, but I like their business strategy. As long as my individual positions are small, they can go to zero without ruining my life, while it could ruin my day.  Right now I am down to 7 different common stocks spread across different segments or industries. Paypal and Square are arguably in the same fintech segment. I have a couple in healthcare as the demand for that is unlikely to go away completely.

Please take my general advice, but ignore specific stocks tips, unless you do your own research. Today is so much better than when I started and we could only get yesterdays closing stock price from a newspaper, today we have a wealth of information at our finger tips.

You mention quants... I see them as yet another threat to the market, as all the investments stand on the same side of the boat. We'll see if it is different this time.

For some investing history, Jack Bogle, the guy who invented low cost index funds just died, if you don't have the time and interest to research individual companies, buying index funds is relatively safe, and will reflect the rise of the market over time. Buying common stocks is more fun, a little like gambling, but with more skill involved.

JR