@DarkCygnus True spam (the usual snake oil stuff) has been a constant on this site. It's just that Smoke Detector has been working behind the scenes for years to nuke it within a minute or two of posting. You don't see these unless you have a tab open for the new questions and refresh it where you'll see spam posts pop up in deleted form still.

It's because we added the Smoke Detector room (thank you again for that by the way :)) that it's more visible what volume we're dealing with.

The troll spam posts are newer and it's mostly unprecedented in how persistent it's been.

The more aggressive spam flags and thresholds are doing their job though. These are gone within seconds usually. I imagine he'll grow bored of it before long.

At this point he's spending more effort on creating disposable emails and accounts than we are on auto-flagging so that's a win in my book.

@Lilienthal Do you think that the trolling is a result of the, -ahem- issues from last fall, or something else. It seems like it's coming from someone with an axe to grind

@Old_Lamplighter I honestly don't really care to speculate. It's not like it matters.

@GregoryCurrie In future I recommend you submit a meta post if you have questions on moderation activity, I almost missed this. :)

Generally my treshold for deletion is any answer that is intended as a soapbox to make a point rather than answer the question. Additionally any answer that's a comment or should have been a comment is deleted. Often it makes no sense to actually convert it to a comment, but I will where relevant (i.e. actually asking the OP for input).

Generally speaking anything that's a pointless comment that I would delete if I saw it on the question is just deleted outright if it was posted as an answer.

I believe it's come up on meta before, certainly recall explaining this a few times already. ;) But let me know or submit a meta post if you have questions on this.

@Lilienthal I am a habitual speculator :) I like to know the causes of things so I can prevent them from happening again. BTW, I like the moderation killing soapbox posts.

@Old_Lamplighter I gave up on speculating after losing 3 months' wages betting on a corona market crash. :D

It sort of lost its charm. ;)

@Lilienthal you were just early. the crash is coming in November, after Trump loses the election

I've given up on predicting anything.

By any sane rationale the crash should have continued further but it was shored up with unlimited QE and is now being held up by most of the US choosing to believe there is no crisis. I'd have expected a new crash about every week now but it's not happening. At this point it's safer to ride it out, assume it will crash but still recover and just buy and hold.

Had I held I'd have essentially recovered again. Factor in buying Amazon at its lowest and taking 60% gains on that and I'd have made money. :)

So I've sworn to stick with my buy&hold approach that worked fine until I gave it up. ^_^'

"market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" ;)

@Old_Lamplighter that may happen, assuming he can keep it together during a debate, which I have my doubts.

@Neo would it be possible to get the smoke detector to flag any post with the words "toxic" or "problematic"? Just joking, but I do wish those words would go away, they are useless filler words that mean nothing

@Lilienthal I used to work for Dow Jones. The market is a fickle, fickle thing driven by greed, fear, and hope. The value of it depends purely on what people think it's value is. The market right now is grossly overvalued, and the bottom will drop out in November, regardless of who wins, but especially if Trump loses, as he's a known quantity, whereas Biden is in failing health and nobody knows who will REALLY be running the show.

Right now, the market is being driven by hope, but once reality catches up, it's going to tank.

@Old_Lamplighter Ordinarily I'd agree, but unlimited QE is a tricky thing as well. If you basically say "I refuse to let the market drop below X" then you lose any chance for market correction which is likely overdue. End result is a vastly inflated market long term with perhaps short-term losses but not enough to offset medium-term growth. In that scenario it's still better to be "in the market" so you're tracking the inflation somewhat.

I'm contemplating moving more into fixed income as elections near but honestly, I'm starting to doubt if market forces will resume sane behaviour any time soon.

By all accounts global economies are in for a nightmare and sustained lower-than-expected growth. That's known right now. Yet the market has recovered.

@Lilienthal it is also worth noting that no matter how bad "the market" is doing, some sectors always prosper, and some companies in bad sectors. Back when we had the stimulus for the car companies. I told people to buy Ford, nobody listened to me because at that point Ford had become a penny stock. It didn't help that I was recovering from my stroke and people thought me deleriou

delerious

Delirious? :)

yes, sorry, fat fingered that..... twice

I thought you were setting up for a stroke joke. ;)

LOL

(It's in extremely poor taste but I couldn't resist.)

And I suppose that's true. There's a reason Amazon is doing well after all. I was shorting back when the crisis was heading to its worst because of the risk of a house of cards scenario.

@Lilienthal I cannot be easily offended.

If global credit breaks down then it doesn't matter how nice your online business is after all.

But I guess they'll never let it happen.

@Lilienthal Amazon, MS, and most of the tech companies are making out like bandits

Even a hyperinflation scenario in 5 years' time beats the sheer terror that a real global financial meltdown would cause.

Oh, didn't check MS in a while. Was banking on sustained growth but it was struggling a bit for a while.

@Lilienthal the best bet is always a good company who's stock has taken a hit due to a bad sector, and not the company's performance. I.E. Ford during the bailouts. GM and Chrysler were in bad shape, but Ford had already fixed their problems. Their stock took a hard hit due to the auto INDUSTRY being down, so they were actually undrvalued.

Oof. Amazon just hit 3.2? damn.

Amazon was in the perfect position to benefit, as they have their own infrastructure not dependent on other companies. Other companies are dependent on them

True enough. I do wonder if there are any undervalued companies out there right now. I would think automotive is in the same boat right now given historic low sales but not sure how true it is.

@Lilienthal auto isn't going to recover until about 3 months after everyone is back working.

Makes sense. Demand might be dodgy but it'll take more than this to make people stop buying cars I suppose.

I'm going to head out, appreciate the discussion @Old_Lamplighter :) Stay sane out there! ;)

@Lilienthal Good luck to you, and good day