And my thoughts on how they make money, did you watch "Wolf of Wall Street"?
Are you implying that they're taking a stake in their own IPOs and pumping and dumping them?
What a fascinating thread.
Two things: first, the ability to buy stocks with a credit card summons my inner contrarian to wonder if we are not approaching an immanent and substantial top in both the equity and credit markets.
Second: if the goal of some is to "manufacture spending," i.e., swipe your card for large transactions which show up as purchases and thus elicit reward points, while keeping the charge as nearly liquid as possible, then I suggest researching other and I think less risky avenues for creating spending out of thin air. Darting in and out of stocks is not the best approach, IMO, given the large lag times between buys and sells, and the inevitable effect of slippage.
1) I don't really view this as a market euphoria thing. I view it as Loyal3 eating credit card fees in order to get people onto their platform.
2) Any methods you suggest?
My favorite techniques involve Amazon Payments, Bluebird, and Serve:
Amazon Payments: send my wife $1000 every month with CC, shows up as a purchase. Drain funds into wife's checking account that I use to pay bills, including credit cards.
Bluebird: buy $500 Vanilla Reload cards at my local CVS, cost $3.95 each, up to 5K a day (10 VR cards) in a single transaction. Load funds onto my Bluebird account which I use to pay my monthly health insurance (NYS, it's pricey), as well as some credit card bills, but not the credit cards I use to buy the Vanilla Reloads in the first place just to be safe. Granted I don't hit the 5K limit (and there are ways to drain Bluebird via money orders at Walmart for a small fee, which I don't normally do) but I usually only load 3K a month onto Bluebird
Serve: load $200 a day for 5 days from CC directly onto serve card online from home. Occasionally add funds via Vanilla Reload cards too.
I've only been using these techniques for several months but the results have been solid. Finding a CVS with Vanilla Reload cards in stock and willing to sell them to you with a points earning credit card is the main hurdle to overcome, IMO. But all three methods in conjunction allow me to generate roughly 3K in credit card "spending" out of thin air, plus to pay the roughly 1K monthly premium for my bare-bones health care plan. We use that manufactured spending and bill pay feature to generate hundreds of thousands of points per year off of sign up bonuses.