r/StockMarket

First of all, I am an active retail investor. I don't invest in financial stocks so I haven't kept up with PYPL as a investment asset until recently. I have never owned, and will never trade PYPL. I saw a thread recently about buying PYPL "at the bottom" and I figured I'd explain first hand on a story that appears to be very common and why they're a slumping business.

I've had a Paypal account for 16 years. I got it when I was in college and buying/selling on Ebay. I got scammed once when I was sent a fake product and when Paypal stepped in, i got a refund. Ever since then, I've used paypal because it was an easy option (no need to type in my CC every time) and I trusted the protection.

In more recent years, with an IPhone/Pixel I now have the option of Apple pay and Google Wallet among other options. I still use by habit Paypal on the assumption of buyer protection.

So after 16 years, I purchased a camera lens via PayPal. It not the same lens as the listing. For those who own cameras, it was the wrong lens and wrong mount. The merchant basically said "its a camera lens. doesn't matter if it wasn't the same lens, its still a camera lens". Pretty scummy so I escalated to Paypal. After being my default purchase option for 16 years online, I needed buyer protection for the 2nd time.

Rather than making a decision, paypal tried to force me to accept some kind of compromise with the merchant. For an item that costs ~$100, they would give me a partial refund of $60 and I would have to pay with tracking and insurance to mail back to them. So I lose money, the item, and have to pay more to lose even more money for no reason. This is basically a scummy merchant playing the refund game. I called Paypal and it went nowhere.

Congrats Paypal. No more payment for flights in Paypal, no more online shopping in Paypal. It's not any more convenient than other options like Apple Pay, Klarna and what not. If there's no protection and you basically help scummy merchants scam, why bother?

16 years, now the account is deleted because the trust is gone. CLV from now on, is 0. Looking at the Paypal forums, it seems that's the trend. It feels like Paypal user base come from the old Ebay days and now its just bad, like if private equity bought it and maximized short term profit over users.

For those who are "buying at the bottom" for PYPL, good luck.

Have a general question? Want to offer some commentary on markets? Maybe you would just like to throw out a neat fact that doesn't warrant a self post? Feel free to post here!

​

If your question is "I have $10,000, what do I do?" or other "advice for my personal situation" questions, you should include relevant information, such as the following:

• How old are you? What country do you live in?
• Are you employed/making income? How much?
• What are your objectives with this money? (Buy a house? Retirement savings?)
• What is your time horizon? Do you need this money next month? Next 20yrs?
• What is your risk tolerance? (Do you mind risking it at blackjack or do you need to know its 100% safe?)
• What are you current holdings? (Do you already have exposure to specific funds and sectors? Any other assets?)
• Any big debts (include interest rate) or expenses?
• And any other relevant financial information will be useful to give you a proper answer. .

Be aware that these answers are just opinions of Redditors and should be used as a starting point for your research. You should strongly consider seeing a registered investment adviser if you need professional support before making any financial decisions!

Disney is trading at a forward P/E of roughly 16x. Historically, Disney has commanded a multiple north of 20x. It is deeply undervalued relative to its historical power because the market is still discounting its legacy linear TV decline and demanding proof that its streaming business (Disney+) can scale its profitability consistently.

Nintendo trades around a 19x P/E. On paper, it looks a bit pricier than Disney, but its balance sheet is legendary. Nintendo carries zero debt and an absolute mountain of cash (over $13 billion). If you strip out that net cash, its enterprise value makes the actual business core look remarkably cheap.

Strictly looking at the stock prices, NTDOY feels like a bargain 50 % cheaper today than just a year ago while DIS is “only” 20 % off in the same timeline.

As for Disney, parks remain a cash machine. Streaming has improved materially. ESPN's direct-to-consumer strategy could unlock value. However, Disney still faces execution risk across streaming, linear TV, and its more leveraged balance sheet.

The Nintendo stock has corrected significantly despite strong early Switch 2 demand, making valuation compelling according to several recent analyses. Nintendo has one of the strongest balance sheets in gaming, with a large cash position and no meaningful long-term debt. Revenue opportunities extend beyond hardware through software, digital sales, movies, and theme-park licensing. But we all know how expensive DRAM, NAND are and recently Nintendo had to hike the prices for Switch 2.

DIS seems to fluctuate between $90-$110 but earnings in May were pretty great hence the historically low P/E.

NTDOY was 100 % higher just a year ago but who knows if it will trade flat for years now. Disney stock did after it crashed five years ago as the boost from Disney+ wore off.

Mickey or Mario? Which stock would you buy for a swing trade and which would you buy for a long term investment?

I've been digging into Velo3D and I think the market is still pricing it like a 3D-printing momentum stock when the business underneath is rapidly turning.

Background: Velo3D makes metal additive manufacturing systems, the Sapphire line, that print parts too complex to machine conventionally. Rocket engines, turbine and jet components, defense hardware. The company nearly died two years ago in the 3D printing meme stock rush (see: Desktop Metals for another example), got pushed to OTC, ran a reverse split, and bumped right up against full near-bankruptcy.

But its customer base changed, and the overall "reindustrialization" vibes/headwinds are forcing the turnaround. Over the past year Velo3D has rebuilt itself around defense with signed, multi-year work: a $32.6 million Department of War award for Project FORGE and an $11.5 million full-rate production contract with a US defense prime, on top of an Army ground-vehicle qualification. The Sapphire printers are assembled in the US, which is the whole game when your buyers are programs that legally cannot source parts offshore. SpaceX is a customer too.

In its first quarter, revenue rose 48% year over year to $13.8 million, gross margin flipped positive to 17.2% after running deeply negative the quarter before, and it added a $9.8 million five-year IDIQ with the Defense Logistics Agency. Management is guiding to positive EBITDA in the back half of 2026.

For a company that was left for dead, gross margin crossing zero is big, because it means each system sold stops burning cash.

To be fair Velo3D has paid for this comeback by selling stock over and over, including a $50 million raise in April and an open at-the-market shelf on top of it, so anyone holding today keeps getting diluted as it scales, but that may be just a short-term fundraising mechanism to keep the pivot pivoting.

Position: small starter

I am curious how many stocks and funds/ETFs people here actually own.

Personally, I hold around 80 individual stocks and 14 funds/ETFs. Most of my funds are low-cost broad index funds from different regions in the world, but I also have a few niche ones focused on defense, space and security.

My main goal is to minimize company-specific risk. There are simply too many great businesses out there, both small caps, micro caps, large caps, and mega caps that I want to own.

I mainly invest in Sweden, Norway, the US, and a few other countries.

My focus is long-term dividend growth, but I also own some BDCs, REITs, and oil/shipping companies that provide strong income streams. Some of those dividends are even essentially tax-free for me due to their structure or domicile (for example, Swedish holdings or Norwegian companies registered in places like Singapore or Bermuda have tax-free dividends for me as a Swedish investor).

My dividend yield is around 5% and YOC 7% ish. Been investing for about a year.

I sometimes wonder if many investors are diversified enough. A lot of people seem to hold only 1–5 stocks, which feels very concentrated to me. You miss out on entire sectors, countries, and business models that could perform well over different market cycles.

If you are too deep in tech, you are very vulnerable to the market climate, and if you are too deep in defensives/value stocks, you risk missing out on innovation, growth, and some of the market’s biggest winners

Of course, concentration can lead to massive gains if you’re right, but diversification lets me sleep better at night while still building what I hope becomes a growing cash-flow machine through dividend reinvestment.

So, how diversified are you?
How many stocks do you own?
How many funds/ETFs?
Do you prefer concentration or broad diversification?
At what point do you think diversification becomes over-diversification?

And NO - I will not change my strategy. This works for me and provides a steady income flow combined with growth and appreciation in share prices. I am right now neck-neck with the SP500, but beating it with 2,5% considering the dividends I have received so far.

Those who are saying “just buy world index” do not understand my philosophy of choosing companies myself across sectors, industries and countries. Also a world index is basically just US tech right now. And not sufficient dividend enough.