Don't Tell @Jim-from-Ohio

[BobKamman]

His Intuit shares are up $15 this morning.  @Jim-from-Ohio  could slow down, slack off on a few appointments this afternoon, and still finish the day with more than when he started.  

[Jim-from-Ohio]

Oh.. I follow it,, between clients, Intuit.. my best stock performer of all time..getting close to $ 700 a share!  paid for my software many times over.

[BobKamman]

But you could have retired by now had you bought HRB at $14 back in 2020 (it's at $48 today).  

[Jim-from-Ohio]

I started buying Intuit when it was about $ 165 a share.. When Intuit caputured a lot of tax pros as customers from a competitor many years ago I thought this would be a good investment. 

[BobKamman]

I think any profits they make from pros are a flyspeck on the P&L.  It's TurboTax that is driving the share price, and I hate to say it but I hear good things about CreditKarma.  

[IRonMaN]

I started buying Intuit stock back when it was ---------------,  Wait a second, I forgot that I don't own any stock and personally I would slit my wrists before I would buy their stock.

[Jim-from-Ohio]

We know, well I know, that you are not intuit's biggest fan.  Please don't hold it against me that I am and I don't mind being known as an Intuit fan-boy. 

[IRonMaN]

I don't hold it against you.  I don't give investment advice, but any time someone brings up Intuit stock values I have to speak up on behalf of the Anti-Intuit fan boys and girls out there 😀

[BobKamman]

@IRonMaN Just for fun I played around with an INTU put today and made $171 (minus $1.30 commissions) in about two hours.

Mar-21-2024
Sell to Close
1 Contract INTU Mar 22 2024 655 Put at Market (Day)
Filled at $6.11
--
Mar-21-2024
Buy to Open
1 Contract INTU Mar 22 2024 655 Put at Market (Day)
Filled at $4.40

[Jim-from-Ohio]

@BobKamman I am up thousands, just today, in minutes, just from holding INTU. 

[PATAX]

@Jim-from-Ohio Dont be too greedy. You know what Jim Cramer says (If not, start watching him).

[Jim-from-Ohio]

@PATAX understood. With interest rates set to be lowered this year, I remember the old adage, Don't fight the Fed.  So I think lower interest rates will have a positive impact on the market in general.  And Intuit, owns the personal tax prep do it yourself businsess and from what I hear has the largest number of Pro customers also.  If they can make Mail Chimp and Credit Karma more successful that is just extra.  I know the IRS push to free filing can cut into some market share but I find most of my clients, even the easy  return clients just don't want to deal with filing on their own. One last point. I remember reading a few years ago before the AI explosion in the markets how Intuit was trying to incorporate AI into all of their platforms. 

[BobKamman]

@PATAX Jim Cramer doesn't say anything, he just shouts a lot. 

While editor-at-large of a finance magazine, he was accused in 1995 of using his position to influence the value of the stocks he covered for personal gain, allegedly earning $2 million for himself in the process. An editor at a competing finance magazine called Cramer’s actions “a legal form of front running.” In 2001, Cramer left investment banking to pursue a career in media, but accusations of wrongdoing followed him.

After the 2008 financial collapse, Cramer faced intense criticism for encouraging the audience of “Mad Money” to hold on to their stock in Bear Stearns. On March 11, 2008, he reassured his viewers: “Bear Stearns is fine. Do not take your money out,” he said. “Bear Stearns is not in trouble.” By March 16, the stock had lost 96 percent of its value. It avoided bankruptcy only because it was purchased by J.P. Morgan Chase later that day.

[PATAX]

@BobKamman If a major league baseball player has a batting average of 366 this is considered extraordinary. But in other professions if an individual may slip once out of a thousand times, then that is all that people remember, and I don't think that is right.

[Jim-from-Ohio]

bad news is good news.. friday 05.03. .new jobs created was down and unemployment ticked up this past month.. so how is that good news. market likes it as it may facilitate interest rate cut.. Dow up over 500 points a few minutes earlier. INTU sharing in the gains. back up to over $ 627

[BobKamman]

INTU down 8%, from 662 to 616, after disappointing earnings report.  Actually, they "reported tax season revenue that exceeded estimates as more customers opted for higher-priced features. Still, the shares fell on investor concerns about a loss in the number of people who use the company’s TurboTax service for free."  Go figure.  Shoulda bought Nvidia instead.  

[Jim-from-Ohio]

I am already up 400% with INTU.  The results exceeded expectations.  Intuit usually falls when earnings releases are issued and build up from that point again. Long INTU, Long ProSeries, TurboTax, CreditKarma, Mail Chimp, of course the money making machine, QuickBooks. .  

[Skylane]

I never actually bot INTU,… acquired shares 4/3/92 when they bought a company i had invested in called Chipsoft.  They manufactured the product i was using… turbo tax pro…. Unit cost was 2.37.  
The dividends pretty much cover the annual software…. But that took 30 years… despite my whining and complaining  they have always been a well run company… and are good to their employees 

More impressed with nvda…. just announced a 10:1    

holy split batman… 

[Jim-from-Ohio]

NVDA has been on a tear. and that 10:1 stock spiit.. I was hoping INTU would announce a split once it hit $ 700 a share. pulled back a bit here but I look for it to rebound shortly. 

Another stock I recently got into is PDD, the parent company of Temu.  I have been a customer of Temu for several months now and am impressed with the quality of items generally speaking and great prices.  I do not use the app when I shop but rather I use my desktop computer as I heard the using the app could have some concerns.  PDD has been on a strong up trend lately and I look for it to continue. PDD released earnings recently which were excellent.. Temu even adverstised during the Super Bowl this year, which is on youtube, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Od0aOse1wc&t=30s

[BobKamman]

@Jim-from-Ohio The US with tariffs is threatening a trade war with China, while China with gunships is threatening a shooting war with Taiwan?  And you're buying Chinese stocks?  That's brave.  I'm not impressed by the Temu ads that Google decides to insert on my desktop monitor, but I'm not much of a consumer.  Trying to figure out how to spend enough next month to meet my $3,000 spend requirement to qualify for 75,000 miles on a new credit card. 

I know you don't have time to chat with clients about the economy, but I just bite my tongue when some of them tell me how bad they are. And I look at their financial situation, which seems to be improving.  I'm just here to do their tax returns.  Although I did get into a discussion with my client who owns a lot of Apple, about all those mining deaths in Congo.  Meanwhile, the latest poll:

• 55% believe the economy is shrinking, and 56% think the US is experiencing a recession, though the broadest measure of the economy, gross domestic product (GDP), has been growing.

• 49% believe the S&P 500 stock market index is down for the year, though the index went up about 24% in 2023 and is up more than 12% this year.

• 49% believe that unemployment is at a 50-year high, though the unemployment rate has been under 4%, a near 50-year low.

[Jim-from-Ohio]

@BobKamman Hi Bob... yes. I know chinese stocks have some extra risks... taking that chance.. this is just part of my portfolio.. PDD (Temu) hit 52 week high today.. saw this come through the news on PDD this morning: 

Bernstein Adjusts Price Target on PDD Holdings Inc to $235 From $180, Maintains Outperform Rating

PDD is beating Alibaba at their own game.. Temu has gone into many countries now.. making a push in Europ and Africa.. Temu is cash rich and can afford super bowl ads.  Long PDD, ITNU, INTC, META, TSLA, HWM, AA SYK WMT, BAC, CMG, V and many more! well diversified

also head of Charles Schwab, (where I trade at) came out and said inflation # 1 concern of Schwab's customers.. some 35 million customers!  Temu is an inflation beater!

[BobKamman]

@Jim-from-Ohio Chinese are not known for the transparency of their accounting standards.  Recently, the government has tightened the restrictions on what auditors can report.  But then, are they any better than BF Borgers?  

[The_AntiTax_Man]

The first tax software company that I was using in 1990 to prepare income tax returns was bought out by Intuit, so I switched to a different tax software company instead of being captured by Intuit.  Then several years later Intuit bought out the tax software company that I had switched to.  My first two software companies were obviously making money on these deals but there was nothing in it for the software users.  At that time I chose to stay put with Intuit because I could see a pattern developing and I was learning that changing tax software every couple of years was costing me a lot of time.  In other words, if you can't beat them, join them. 

I was determined that if intuit got bought out by some rival tax software company that I needed to get paid to switch tax software.  So, starting back in December of 2000 I decided to start buying Intuit stock each year so that I could cash-in if intuit decided to cash-out on the software users like me.  I bought the first Intuit shares for under $25/share.  I didn't want to do it, but I felt like I had to do it to protect myself.  I have continued to purchase Intuit stock each year since 2000 with the idea that I can get paid if Intuit sells us out. 

I am happy that I haven't had to change tax software companies for a long period of time.  But I have taken note that Intuit is not putting forth the effort required to make the PS tax software a great product for some time now.  I'm not sure how much longer Intuit can operate in this manner and retain software renewals.                

[sjrcpa]

"I'm not sure how much longer Intuit can operate in this manner and retain software renewals."

Do they need to? Do they care? They have Turdoh Tax and QuickBooks.

[IRonMaN]

Yeah, they make enough money off of Turdddotaxxx and QB.  I think they are just holding on to the professional tax software to try and irritate as many tax preparers as they can. 😬

[The_AntiTax_Man]

I do not use QuickBooks [QB] in my practice.  None of my clients use QB.   

Do any of you have an educated guess as to how many PS users are also QB users?

Do any of you use the QB to PS data transfer protocol in your practice? 

Are all QB users tied so tightly into PS that it would be impossible for them to leave PS?  IF SO, how bad would the PS software need to become before they would leave PS for a rival software company? 

[IRonMaN]

I use Sage for our firm software but have QB only because so many clients use it.  But I have never used the QB to PS transfer gizmo.